January 1, 2021
Clement Lee Counts III, Ph.D., also known as “That Clam and Snail Guy,” “Dude,” “Doc,” and “Daddy,” 74, of Salisbury, Md., passed away Thursday, Dec. 24, 2020, at Tidalhealth Peninsula Regional Medical Center surrounded by loving family. He was a man who lived a life of scholarship, learning, exploration and teaching.
Born in Huntington, W.Va., Oct. 3, 1946, Clem graduated from Chesapeake High School, Chesapeake, Ohio, in 1965, and briefly studied fine arts at Ohio University. He later attended Marshall University where he developed a lifelong passion for science. He graduated with a B.A. in zoology and a chemistry minor, and was elected to Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, and Chi Beta Phi, the National Scientific Honorary Fraternity. Having discovered he loved college, he decided never to leave, earning his M.S. in biological sciences from Marshall University under Dr. Ralph W. Taylor, and his Ph.D. from the University of Delaware College of Marine Studies under Dr. Melbourne Carriker, who became a lifelong friend. Clem’s dissertation, “Bivalves in the Genus Corbicula Mühlfeld,” was awarded the College’s Academic Council Award for Best Marine Biology - Biochemistry Dissertation of 1983. He went on to teach at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore and Salisbury University until his illness forced him to retire in 2013.