Dr. Clarence Boone is a well-known obstetrician/gynecologist in the Northwest Indiana medical community.

When he began medical school at Indiana University School of Medicine in 1952, he was one of only five African-Americans to do so. Of those, he was the only one to graduate in four years.

Since then, his career has included leadership positions at Gary Medical Specialists, Inc., the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Methodist Hospitals of Gary. He also served on the board of Planned Parenthood for a number of years and was an active supporter of the organization.

According to Boone, “Planned Parenthood offered a service to a lot of individuals who would not otherwise have received it. If you had to take care of women who had an illegal abortion, and witnessed the agony they had to go through, well, we began to set up a facility to accommodate them in a decent and professional way.”

In 2000, around the time he retired, Boone was inducted into Steel City Hall of Fame.

Dr. Patrick Bankston, the head of Indiana University Northwest’s school of medicine, said, “Many of us would not be here if it were not for Dr. Clarence Boone. He and several other doctors in the area had the idea for a medical school here at IUN, and they put things together and created the legislation that created the medical school.”