U.S. Navy Lt. Clyde E. Lassen, Venice High School Class of 1960, earned the Medal of Honor for his actions on the night of June 19, 1968, when the then 27-year-old helicopter pilot recovered two Naval aviators whose aircraft had been shot down in North Vietnam.
Under enemy fire, Lassen tried several times to recover the two pilots, ultimately turning on his landing lights, even though it exposed the exact location of his UA-2A Seasprite helicopter to North Vietnamese gunfire.
After successfully retrieving the two aviators, he flew the bullet-ridden helicopter to a safe landing on the USS Jouette with about five minutes of fuel left.
Lassen, who grew up in the Edgewood area of Venice and Englewood, became the first of three Naval aviators to earn the Medal of Honor for actions taken in Vietnam and is one of 24 Medal of Honor recipients from Florida.
He received the award from President Lyndon B. Johnson in a ceremony at the White House on Jan. 16, 1969.
Sometime after that Lassen arrived at Venice High School via helicopter for a ceremony in the football stadium at his alma mater, recalled Earl Midlam, a member of the Venice High Class of 1970.
Midlam remembered Lassen as being very nice and down to earth.
In 2010, the alumni associated with the All Class Reunion worked with Col. John Saputo, USMC Retired, to fund a plaque honoring Lassen. That plaque is now on display at Heritage Park near Venice Beach.
One man is now on a campaign to convince Sarasota County Schools to name a new high school after the local hero.
An influential meeting at Venice High
Retired U.S. Navy Command Master Chief Stephen Clark, now a project manager with the Sarasota County School District, was a 17-year-old in the Junior Reserve Officer Training Program at Venice High School when he met Lassen, who retired with the rank of Commander in December 1982 as a commanding officer of Helicopter Training Squadron 8 at Naval Air Station Whiting Field in Milton, Florida.
Clark recently embarked on a letter-writing campaign to Sarasota County School Board members and district officials, asking that the new high school planned for Wellen Park be named in honor of Lassen, who died of cancer in 1994.
The U.S. Navy commissioned the guided missile destroyer USS Lassen in his honor in 2001 and the Clyde E. Lassen State Veterans’ Nursing Home, which opened in 2010 in St. Augustine, Florida carries his name.
Locally, the Clyde E. Lassen Memorial VFW Post 10178 is named in his honor.
Clark has hopes that the new high school in Wellen Park will be named to honor an officer he briefly met as a teen but whose humble demeanor influenced his own military career.
“This man, to me, my perception, he was a quiet, reserved individual,” Clark said. “He came across as very humble. He wasn’t the type of person (to say) ‘Look at me, flyboy.’”
“He was very humble in his life and his achievements.”
“I think that my career in the military went in a way that was largely, in part, by his influence,” added Clark, who graduated from Venice High in 1987 but didn’t join the Navy until he was 30.
“I went in as an E-nothing and rose in the ranks and became a command master chief in the Navy Seabees,” Clark said. “And at that level, there’s only eight of us.”
A quest to honor a hero
Before embarking on his campaign, Clark sought the permission of the commander’s widow, Linda Lassen, who gave him the blessing of the family.
Lassen had been so private about his heroics in Vietnam that his children did not learn the full story until a symposium at the National Museum of Naval Aviation in 1993, the same year Lassen donated his Medal of Honor to the museum.
Clark said he previously discussed the possibility of naming a school after Lassen with Scott Lempe before he retired as chief operating officer of the Sarasota County School District but the district wasn’t building new schools then.
He saw the recent growth spurt and building boom as a perfect opportunity, especially since Wellen Park is close to Englewood.
Other schools in the state of Florida have been named for Medal of Honor winners. Most recently, in August 2006, Paul R. Smith Middle School in Holiday, Florida was named after Army Sgt. First Class Paul Ray Smith, who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Closer to home, Hector A. Cafferata Jr. Elementary School in Cape Coral, Florida was named for U.S. Marine PFC Hector A. Cafferata, who on Nov. 28, 1950, during the Chosin Reservoir Campaign of the Korean War, held off a Chinese attack with grenades and rifle fire.
How does Sarasota County choose school names?
But Sarasota County has – for the most part – refrained from naming schools after people. Only educator Emma E. Booker has received such an honor – with elementary, middle and high schools named after her.
That dovetails well with a school board policy of naming facilities “in memory or honor of the extraordinary, distinguished contributions of individuals to humanity, to our county, state, nation or school district.”
Since the three schools were named after Booker, a pioneering educator in the Black community, the district has not intentionally named a school for an individual.
Sarasota County schools are named for the streets where they’re located, the city or geographic location, or in response to substantial financial gifts.
In his letter to the media and school board, Clark pointed out that the practice of naming schools geographically has indirectly resulted in schools being named for people.
For example, Tuttle Elementary, which is indirectly named after engineer William M. Tuttle; Gocio Elementary, indirectly named after Arthur Gocio, a citrus grower; Taylor Ranch Elementary, which was built on land once owned by the family of Ruth E. Berry Tayor; and Phillippi Shores Elementary can be traced to the Phillippi Creek, which was named for Spanish fisherman Philippi Bermudez, from the middle of the 19th century.
“They’re schools that carry these people’s names,” Clark said. “Whether it was the area of a farm, the road or whatever, ipso facto, they’re named for these people.”
Clark noted that Lassen “was awarded the medal of honor for selfless acts, on behalf of his nation and it’s appropriate.”
Another way to honor a Medal of Honor recipient
The naming history lesson provided by Clark hit home with members of the School Board and Superintendent of Schools Terry Connor, who discussed the naming of the school, as well as choices for its mascot and colors, during a Nov. 6 work session.
Board Member Tom Edwards said he didn’t know that many of the district’s schools were named for people.
But rather than name the new Wellen Park school after Lassen, he thought it would be more meaningful to tell Lassen’s story in annual Veterans Day programming.
“I think it’s much more meaningful and has a longer lasting impact if we really take a hold of that story and embed it in our conversations on an annual basis,” Edwards said. “I think that’s a better way to handle the conversation.”
Conner agreed with that line of thought.
“Embed it all throughout the district, so it’s not contained at Wellen Park High School,” said Connor, who also noted that the Navy JROTC planned for the Wellen Park campus could honor him as well.
Board Member Robin Marinelli suggested a placement of a plaque at the school may be appropriate; and Board Member Tim Eno thought that Lassen could be recognized through naming opportunities associated with an administrative building, football field or media center.
The board did approve a naming committee’s recommendation of christening the school Wellen Park High School, as well as the choice of an eagle as a mascot and red, white and blue as the school colors.
All of that must still be voted on and finalized at an upcoming meeting.
Information from the U.S. Department of Defense ‘Medal of Honor Monday’ was used in this report.