You’re always hearing about the people leaving Selma, but there’s at least one who’s coming home – this fall. Her name is Orpha L. Clark, and while she’s been away for 23 years since graduation from R.B. Hudson High School,

her family still lives here.

Clark is in the process of buying a home in Selma and expects to return in the fall.

Why’s she coming back? To be an independent melaleuca marketing executive in Selma.

What’s melaleuca? It’s a compound that is the key ingredient

for some 350 products in various lines, such as health, cleaning and bath and body, which are being marketed nationally by folks like Clark. The oil comes from a tree found in Australia. New uses were discovered for the oil long known to Aborigines, when it was observed how well their teeth and skin prospered through regular usage of the leaves of the plant.

Clark began using the products several years ago, and soon came to believe that they’re the best substitute overall for all the “toxin-filled products”

used in the home, as she puts it.

“I have a total melaleuca home,” she said proudly.

She will be holding a showing of some 250 products

at the Performing Arts Centre

from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on July 10, at which many of the products will be on display. There is no charge for attending, she said.

“Anyone who is interested in better health and financial freedom should come,” she said.

While attendees will not be able to buy on the spot, they will be able to order products, which take two to three days to be delivered, she said. And if participants

are so taken with what they find, they can sign up to become sellers themselves and, in effect, purchase a stake in the business.

“It’s a wonderful business opportunity for people who want to work out of their homes,” she said. “They can do as much or as little as they want,” she added. Classie Glover is already working with her in Selma, she said.

“You can make anywhere from $100 extra per month to $10,000,” Clark said.

Melaleuca Wellness Co. was founded in Idaho Falls, Idaho, 19 years ago, according to Clark. “It’s the largest privately owned company of its kind and it has experienced constant growth in sales, even through 9/11,” she said. “In 2003 the company had $500 million in gross sales,” she added.

Clark has been working for the company for six months part time.

Clark has an interesting story to tell.

Her father and grandfather had good jobs at the time of the Voting Rights struggle in Selma in the 1960s. She very much wanted to march to Montgomery with Dr. King and the others who had gathered.

However, her family was fearful that if she were seen, some might lose their jobs.

“So I had to run away from home (to go on the march),” she said. “I joined the march down Highway 80 and completed the trip to Montgomery with the marchers.”

Clark still remembers those heady days and values the memories immensely.

Since then she has spent 17 years of her life in a 9-to-5 slot with American Airlines in Cincinnati

taking reservations and raising a family.

Now she’s ready to retire from corporate America, take her pension and set out on her own to try her hand at selling.

Right now she’s working in Alabama, Florida and southern Ohio, holding shows like the one planned in Selma on July 10.

She enjoys the travel, meeting people and selling, but she has her heart set on returning to her hometown of Selma. And she’ll be home very soon – for good, she said.