Judy Campbell Clancy

Judy Campbell Clancy​ is the widow of Gonzo lawyer, John G. Clancy, a lifelong friend and legal counselor to Hunter S. Thompson.

Judy has been active in the Gonzo tradition of social justice since the early 1970’s. A graduate of Colorado State University in 1970, she produced a line of cowboy-chic western shirts called “Smelter Mountain”, which sold in well-known western stores and boutiques. In 1979 she promoted American-made Western Wear in Paris and London for the Western and English Sales Association.

She inspired a joint venture with the Utah Navajo Industries in Mexican Hat, Utah and later with the Navajo Nation in Window Rock, Arizona where she designed, produced, and marketed a line of clothing called DINEH, based on Native American traditional velvets and cowboy attire. She was awarded a grant by the Rensselaerville Institute in New York to promote and train her Navajo designers.

In 1980 the U.S. Department of Commerce gave her a mission to Wounded Knee, South Dakota to assist in opening a sewing factory using Lakota Sioux quilt designs. A clothing stylist herself, she opened a retail boutique outlet Smelters Coalroom in 1973 in Durango, Colorado and has worked as a consultant for Sara Campbell LTD in Boston and Nantucket, Mass.

In 1986, and for the next 32 years, Judy founded an outreach program /community service called ​Los Abuelos ​where school-aged children visit a local nursing home each week to bond through creative art projects.

She works as a job coach for the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation for the State of Colorado.

She is an active member of the International Thomas Merton Society, producing many Merton-oriented, contemplative retreats in Durango. She works with the Missionaries of Charity in Gallup, New Mexico to feed and house Native Americans in the Four Corners.