[4] Clausen taught in public school for five years and was from 1967 to 1972 an assistant professor at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana.
[4] Clausen first ran for superintendent in the 1979 nonpartisan blanket primary but lost in the general election to the Democratic incumbent J. Kelly Nix, a native of West Carroll Parish in northeastern Louisiana.
Hed stressed a "common-sense" approach to education, with emphasis on basic knowledge, classroom discipline, vocational programs, and teacher training.
The Louisiana Secretary of State's office does not give the statewide results of this race on its website, but the outcome is provided in the returns for the individual parishes, most of which supported Clausen.
Superintendent Clausen worked to implement more rigorous graduation requirements and expanded the elective subjects offered to include computer literacy, the arts, and foreign languages.
Upon his death of cancer[5] in Baton Rouge at the age of sixty-two, the Louisiana State Senate read a concurrent resolution in his honor.