his name does not appear on the published roll of convention delegates). His mother was of English ancestry and was a Methodist. Kanne came from the Kohen family line, and Clark's son has characterized Clark's parents' marriage, between his Methodist mother, Veneta (née Updegraff), and his Jewish father, Benjamin Jacob Kanne, as "about as multicultural as you could've gotten in 1944". Clark was born Wesley J. Kanne in Chicago on December 23, 1944. His father Benjamin died on December 6, 1948; his mother then moved the family to Little Rock, Arkansas. The move was made to escape the cost of living in the city of Chicago, for the support Veneta's family in Arkansas could provide, and her feeling of being an outsider to the religion of the Kanne family. Once in Little Rock, Veneta married Victor Clark, whom she met while working as a secretary at a bank. Victor raised Wesley as his son, and officially adopted him on Wesley's 16th birthday. Wesley's name was changed to Wesley Kanne Clark. Victor Clark's name actually replaced that of Wesley's biological father on his birth certificate, something Wesley would later say that he wished they had not done. Veneta raised Wesley without telling him of his Jewish ancestry to protect him from the anti-Jewish activities of the Ku Klux Klan in the southern U.S. Although his mother was Methodist, Clark chose a Baptist church after moving to Little Rock and continued attending it throughout his childhood. He graduated from Hall High School with a National Merit Scholarship. He helped take their swim team to the state championship, filling in for a sick teammate by swimming two legs of a relay. Clark has often repeated the anecdote that he decided he wanted to go to West Point after meeting a cadet with glasses who told Clark (who wore glasses as well) that one did not need perfect vision to attend West Point as Clark had thought. Clark applied, and he was accepted on April 24, 1962. Military career Clark's military career began July 2, 1962, when he entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. He later said that Douglas MacArthur's famous "Duty, honor, country" speech was an important influence on his view of the military. The speech was given to the class of 1962 several months before Clark entered West Point, but a recording was played for his class