The day before Donald Clark was expected to return to his Newellton home for a three-week furlough, the 49-year-old assistant driller and father of two was killed in the April 20 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion 50 miles south of the Louisiana coast.

At 1 p.m. Saturday, a memorial will be held for Clark in the gym of the Newellton Elementary School, where his wife, Sheila, is a teacher, said Tensas Parish Sheriff Rickey Jones.

“It’s been a huge shock,” Jones said of the impact Clark’s sudden death has had on the town of 1,500 residents located 25 miles south of Tallulah. “It’s very tragic, and it doesn’t seem real. We have a good community, and at times like this we pull together to support our own.”

Clark’s family and friends have been grieving privately since the explosion, said his brother and District 2 Tensas Parish Police Juror Danny Clark, who declined comment when reached Wednesday.

Clark had worked on oil rigs for 14 years, and his family is well-known and liked in the community, said Jones. He was an assistant driller with Transocean Ltd., which owned the rig but was leasing it to BP at the time of the explosion.

“Our hearts go out to the entire family,” he said. “There has been an outpouring of support.”

Of the 11 workers killed in the explosion, five were from Louisiana, four were from Mississippi and two were from Texas. The search for the missing men was called off on April 23, the day after the rig eventually sank, and no bodies have been recovered.

Services

A memorial service for Donald Clark, one of 11 oil rig workers killed in the April 20 explosion off the Louisiana Coast, will be Saturday at 1 p.m. at the Newellton Elementary School Gym, 400 Verona St.