Clarence Faulk

After two years at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, Faulk transferred to the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, where he met Louise Benson Page, a native of Topeka, Kansas, herself a journalism student. The couple married in 1931, a 72-year union that ended with her death on June 8, 2003, at the age of ninety-three. Faulk was publisher of the Ruston Daily Leader for thirty-one years until he sold the newspaper in 1962. In 1947, Faulk established KRUS, which he managed until 1968. For many years, he was the president of the Louisiana Press Association and the Louisiana Broadcasters Association.

The Faulks owned throughout Ruston numerous residential rental properties, a sixteen-unit apartment complex, and several commercial buildings. In 1988, Faulk was named the recipient of the "Russ Award", named for the founder of Ruston, Robert E. Russ, the highest honor that a resident of Ruston can receive through the Ruston-Lincoln Parish Chamber of Commerce. Faulk was active in Trinity United Methodist Church in Ruston and the Kiwanis International, of which he was a member for seventy years. He was also active in the Ruston-Lincoln Parish Centennial, the Lincoln Parish Library, and the Ruston Peach Festival. For nearly three decades, Faulk was the chairman of the Lincoln Parish Housing Authority. He was a contributor to the Louisiana Tech University Department of Journalism, having endowed the Clarence and Louise Faulk Chair of Journalism. In 1985, the Faulks were two of the first three persons to receive honorary doctoral degrees from Louisiana Tech. On the occasion of Faulk's 100th birthday in 2009, he received a Certificate of Honor from Louisiana Tech president Dan Reneau and a proclamation of "Clarence Faulk Day" from Ruston Mayor Dan Hollingsworth. There were also letters of commendation from Governor Bobby Jindal, then State Representative Hollis Downs of Ruston, and then U.S. Representative Rodney Alexander of Louisiana's 5th congressional district.

A source of oral history on the general Ruston area, Faulk was considered an expert on the 1934 ambush in Bienville Parish of the bandits Bonnie and Clyde, having covered the scene as the young publisher of the Ruston Daily Leader. He was an authority too on the former Camp Ruston, a prisoner of war facility that held German and Italian inmates during World War II. Himself classified 4-F during the war because of severe eye problems, Faulk nevertheless became a first lieutenant in the Home Guard. He was a member of the federal wartime Office of Price Administration, often called the "rationing board". He was the chairman of the Ruston area savings bond drive.

Clarence Eugene Faulk, Jr. (January 9, 1909 – March 5, 2010), was an American journalist who published from 1931 to 1962 the Ruston Daily Leader, the daily newspaper in Ruston in north Louisiana. Through the ownership of KRUS-AM radio, Faulk was a broadcaster. He was also engaged in real estate and a pioneer of self-storage warehousing, a business that he did not launch until after he was seventy years of age.

Faulk was born in West Monroe in Ouachita Parish, Louisiana, to C. E. Faulk, Sr. (1878–1951), and the former Josephine McClendon (1882–1962), who are interred there at Hasley Cemetery. Clarence Faulk, Sr. published the Monroe News Star in Monroe, Louisiana, and was a founder and the president from 1934 to 1945 of Delta Air Lines. He was chairman of the Delta board from 1948 until his death in 1951. Faulk's brother, Robert McClendon Faulk (1917–1988) of Vero Beach, Florida, was a World War II veteran and a Delta Air Lines pilot. A sister, Eleanor Faulk Cone (died 1993) of Falls Church, Virginia, was a graduate of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and Tulane University School of Law in New Orleans