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Austin’s Clarke Straughan romances the world, Part 1

By Michael Barnes | Monday, August 10, 2009, 08:27 AM

In 2001, for his first task as the state’s director of international protocol, Clarke Straughan welcomed the king and queen of Spain to Texas.

Tough gig. Visiting tycoons, celebrities, diplomats and heads of state strain the normal limits of protocol — where to sit, where to stand, how to address people — but actual royalty, even today, rely on extremely precise arrangements to maintain dignity and, thus, international good will.

“No problem,” Straughan, now retired, thought. He had already served King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia, discreetly, at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, where the then-crown prince and princess sojourned on their honeymoon. Almost four decades later, the couple recognized him — and thanked him for his past hospitality — during a reception for the opening of Southern Methodist University’s Meadows Museum of Art.

“Clarke, after all these years!” He remembers Queen Sofia exclaiming. “Thirty-nine years!” King Juan Carlos interjected.

No denying, socially, Straughan possesses the golden touch. The San Antonio native has led a beguiling life, one that began in utmost working-class normalcy.

Now an Austinite, Straughan spent seven years of his youth, during the 1960s, circling the globe with empty pockets, picking up jobs, mostly in the hospitality industry, along the way.

He babysat the Beatles in Hong Kong; dodged guerillas in Cambodia; and danced into a string of romances from Tahiti to Italy. His youthful adventures are recounted in “Romancing the Impossible,” a memoir distributed through Travel Treasure Publishing.

Tall, handsome and courtly, Straughan, now married, looks and sounds like central casting’s idea of a U.S. senator. In fact, a hint of late Senator Lloyd Bentsen can be detected in his manner and diction. From the evidence of his book’s many photographs, the younger edition of Straughan resembled suave Austin-raised actor Zachary Scott, his one suit fitting lightly over a gangly frame.