Clarence Sawyer

Longtime Greeley County resident, Clarence Leroy Sawyer, 93, died Monday, March 19, 2018 at the Greeley County Hospital in Tribune, Kansas.

He was born on May 16, 1924 in Chautauqua County, Kansas, the son of Jess B. and Ruth E. (Gilstrap) Sawyer.  He was the middle child of seven children.  Clarence graduated from Greeley County High School with the class of 1943.

On December 10, 1947, he and Joy Anne Hamann were married in the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Tribune, Kansas, and to that union, four children were born.

Clarence was a farmer until he retired in 2002.  In the off season, he worked with Joe Govert, owner of Govert Construction.  They built and remodeled numerous homes in Greeley County.  They also put up Behlen buildings and grain bins.  In October of 1991, he was elected chairman of the Greeley County Cemetery Board and served on it until his term expired in 2015.  The Cemetery Board had enough confidence to hire him as Sexton in April of 2006, at the age of 81 years old.  He took a lot of pride in the cemetery.  The week or so before his stroke in December of 2014, he was still active and able bodied enough to work at the age of 90.

Preceding him in death were his parents; his wife Joy; an infant son Thomas Leroy Sawyer; a son Timothy Allen Sawyer; three brothers, John, Darrell and Hubert; two sisters Ruby Temple and Charlene Walker; an infant nephew Jeffrey Sawyer, and other nephews Wayne E. “Chip” Temple II, Michael Sawyer and Greg Sawyer.

Surviving family includes two daughters; Virginia “Ginger” Johnson of Arvada, Colorado; Janine (Shawn) Baehler of Sharon Springs; Grandson Jess Coltin Baehler of Sharon Springs; Granddaughter Morganne Del Baehler and her fiancé Jarvis Carraway of Texas City, Texas; one brother Roy (Ruth) Sawyer of Willows, California; sister-in-law Sherre Sawyer of Wellington, Kansas; and many nieces, nephews and friends.