Early Life and Education

John Clark Salyer (he would go by "J. Clark Salyer" as an adult) was born in 1902 near Higginsville, Missouri, and moved with his family to Lexington in 1913.  He had years of experience with local wildlife as a child, fishing in local creeks and rivers to provide for his family, and trapping small mammals to sell for their fur.

In Lexington, young John and his brothers were able to attend the local high school, called "Central High" by locals. Unlike present-day public high schools, which are funded by taxes, the families of high school students at the time had to pay for tuition and textbooks; Lexington's "Central High" cost $5.00 per year (about $131.62 per year today). Fortunately for the Salyer family, John and his brothers were eligible for the Aull Fund, created by a bequest in the will of local resident John Aull to pay for tuition, textbooks, and even shoes of "poor children" who were eligible to attend Central High.

Unusual for the time, Central High at Lexington taught its students courses in agriculture and the life sciences. Salyer also made connections with like-minded friends as his classmate and later fellow biologist, Gordon Alexander, and his high school chemistry teacher, Monroe Clemens. With their encouragement, Salyer subscribed to and assisted with publications in scientific periodicals such as The Auk and The Oologist-- and enrolled at Central College (today Central Methodist University) in 1920.

After his graduation from Central, Salyer researched wildlife at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and the Iowa Fish and Game Commission before being recruited in 1935 to the Bureau of Biological Survey, specifically to build wildlife refuges.