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Student Profile: Gen McClure
Fly fishing, Dalai Lama's favorite candy
By Jessie Yale
jyale@mscd.edu

Photo courtesy of Gen McClure

At the age of 25, Metro student Gen McClure has already traveled the globe, received a world record for fly fishing and managed to sneak the Dalai Lama a bit of his favorite candy.

McClure started fly fishing with her grandfather – who for the most part raised her – when she was three years old.

“I call him my “Grand” father because he is the coolest guy I know,” Mcclure said. “I started fly fishing so I could hang out with him more.”

Through her passion for fishing, McClure has accomplished more than the average angler.

When she was 16 she became the world’s youngest female professional fly fisher and joined the Junior USA Fly Fishing team – the equivalent of an Olympics team for people who love to fish. But for McClure it wasn’t always easy being a female in a sport dominated by males.

“I thought I was put on the team because I was good, I found out later it was because I was a media ploy,” McClure said. “I was told I would sell magazines.”

During a world fly fishing event in Wales, England, McClure’s team won silver medals, while she was nearly excluded from the whole thing.

“I was put on alternate and wasn’t allowed to attend any of the events,” McClure said. “I had to sit at a different table during the banquet and the team almost got away with giving my medal to someone else that wasn’t even on the team, I think it was the media consultant or something.”

She ended up with her medal after she explained her story to a Welsh man who turned out to be one of the head officials at the event. After hearing her story he went to the USA team and told them they would be stripped of their medals and banned from the sport if they didn’t give Mcclure her medal, she said.

McClure has traveled to Mexico, Wales and all over the United States, including Alaska, to pursue fly fishing. She also holds a world record for catching a Kawakawa fish in Midway Atoll, an island between Japan and Hawaii.

At age 17, she dropped out of her alternative high school, Community Charter.

“I wasn’t learning anything but how to smoke cigarettes and quote Shakespeare,” McClure said. A month later she got her GED.

Before dropping out, she met the Dalai Lama through the high school program Peace Jam.

“Everyone brings him gifts, but he’s not allowed to accept them because he’s the Dalai Lama. He ends up giving all the gifts to charity,” McClure said. “I was broke at the time so I bought him some 50 cent Rollos candies, figuring if he can’t accept them I get to eat some Rollos.”

When she gave him the candy she was surprised when he looked around conspicuously and put the Rollos in his pocket. He told her, “Rollos are my favorite.”

Mcclure will be graduating from Metro in Summer 2007 with a Bachelor’s in Criminal Justice. After graduation she wants to be a cold case detective, and to continue to travel.

“When I have bazillion dollars I want to travel in one of those van/RVs and drive cross country finding the U.S.’s largest stuff, like the ball of yarn and the frying pan. I also want to find all the weird houses,” McClure said.