Cowley Grand Marshal - Sharon Godfrey Blackburn

Sharon Blackburn is this year’s grand marshal for the Cowley Pioneer Day Parade this Saturday. The following story is reprinted from the 2025 Pioneer Day Book.

Sharon Godfrey was born on May 5, 1935, during a smallpox outbreak. As soon as the doctor arrived, he could smell illness in the Godfrey house. He immediately sent her mother (Alda Peterson Godfrey) to Grandpa Godfrey’s (William Edward Godfrey) home by the viaduct. As her mother was the bus driver and her father was taking care of the ill family, school was dismissed for the rest of the year. Many of Cowley’s school students thought Sharon was the best baby around.

Sharon was the fifth child of seven (Dick, Bill, Dennis, Greta, Sharon and twins Gene and Dean; Dean died shortly after birth), born to Alda and Dick (Earnest Dudley) Godfrey. She lived on a farm just outside of Cowley (the current home of Ken and Janeen Blackburn). Her job was to do the dishes and help her mother carry the milk in after she’d milked the cows. The family sold milk, so it was very important to get all the milk into the house as soon as she was done.

She attended school in Cowley, and her class has remained very good friends throughout the years. (However, there are only two of them left now.) Just before her senior year of high school, on August 6, 1952, she married Kenneth Asay Blackburn in Idaho Falls. They rented a house from the Lithgows in Cowley while she finished her high school education.  According to Sharon, her classmates were always so good to include Ken in any of their activities throughout the year. 

The next adventure took them to Laramie. Ken always had fellowships and scholarships that gave him the opportunity to attend college.  They spent many full years there and many summers, as well. Ken became a teacher and was always pursuing more education. Eventually, he received his Ph.D. Sharon commented that she always associated Laramie with morning sickness.

Sharon and Ken were blessed with three children, Debra, Denise and Ken G. Her son, Ken G., said of his mom, “The example of my parents is the foundation of my life. They taught me to serve and love others.”

Ken Sr. taught in Deaver and Powell, was an administrator in Hannah/Elk Mountain and the School for the Deaf, worked for the Department of Education in Cheyenne and then became a professor at Eastern Montana College in Billings. Through it all, Sharon and the children were right by his side and served in whatever capacity asked of them, especially as a typist for Ken’s masters and doctoral theses.

Sharon has always been active in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She has served in the Relief Society presidency 17 times, and many of those years were as president. Her favorite calling, however, was as a Merit Badge counselor for the Boy Scout Program. She’s forgotten how many boys she helped to obtain their Eagle, but one special one was Ken G., her son.

When Ken Sr. was ready to retire, they looked around and recognized that Cowley was still a great place to raise kids and retire. Sharon went to work for Sidon Irrigation for 15 years and then as the Cowley Cemetery custodian. She worked hard to keep the cemetery well maintained and to give honor to those who had blessed her life throughout the years. Sharon identified 75 unmarked graves, and with the help of the Young Men and Young Women organizations of Cowley, they poured blocks of cement and embedded plaques identifying those people. She said she did a lot of genealogy and phone calling to people as far away as Texas and California to find the information she needed. While at the cemetery, she and Ken Sr. saw that a new watering system was put in. She cataloged all the veterans and worked with veteran organizations to see that these people were honored. She commented that the cemetery board was always supportive of her efforts.

While working at the cemetery, she took over from Wilma Anderson the task of keeping information about everyone who is buried in Cowley. The information sheets consist of names, parents’ names and birth and death dates. She has obituaries from the paper and programs from their funerals. It is a monument of love to those who have left us.

When asked if she had any words of wisdom to pass on, she said, “Find the beauty in everything. If you can find it, you’ll be OK.”

Cowley is honored to have Sharon Godfrey Blackburn as the 2025 Grand Marshal.