Edward Cowan

Long-time Sikeston music educator and band director Edward (Ed) Cowan died on Sunday, July 19, 2026. Jackie Cowan, Dean Cowan, Jennifer Cowan and the extended Cowan family invite everyone who knew Ed - including former students - to celebrate his life on Saturday, July 25, 2026, between 1:30 to 4:00 PM at the St Francis Xavier Parish Center on the corner of Front Street and N Stoddard Street in Sikeston. Solemnity is prohibited. Shorts are encouraged. Wear your favorite t-shirt. There will be a band. There will be ice cream. There will be cookies and cake. There will not be a traditional visitation. If you were in band – any band – and tried to learn to play music, please come. Even if you sucked.

In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made to the Sikeston Public Schools Foundation. Or bring your instrument and play a little something for the crowd.

Sikeston Public Schools Foundation

https://givebutter.com/ed-cowan-memorial-contributions-copy-s6krcg

This one time at band camp…

Ed Cowan (bassoon) was a zealous and passionate champion of music education and musical arts. He loved teaching and most (but not all) of his students. He taught beginning band for over 20-years and no one died or was injured despite an endless series of public concerts. One of his first decisions when he became director of the Sikeston High School band was to change the lead foot for the marching band ‘to match the rest of the world’, noting after the fact ‘I would not have thought high school students would have such difficulty with which leg to move’.

Ed possessed a quick, wry sense of humor that he displayed most every day of his life. On August 17, 1968, he married his high school sweetheart, Jacqueline Koester, a petite, athletic knockout who, despite options, said ‘Ed made me laugh’.

Music and humor were constants and combining the two gave Ed Cowan immeasurable joy. Records and a defunct TV game show titled ‘Name That Tune’ served as the basis for selecting music for Sikeston bands for part of a decade. Every spring an endless chain of records would arrive at the Cowan home, each containing recordings of songs played by bands, for which the sheet music to reproduce those songs with your local band could be purchased. Note that ‘reproduction’ was theoretical – local results would vary. For those that don’t recall, sheet music is a physical representation of music with staves and clefs and flats and sharps and dots and a bunch of other stuff that some of you can read and not as many of you can turn into music.

Mr. Cowan would select his favorite songs and gather the family. The family would proceed to bid on how many notes would need to be played before they could name the song (the fewest number of notes was the winner). Ed would then proceed to play the specified number of notes. Successful guesses resulted in the purchase of the music. The current recordholder remains Jennifer Cowan (trumpet) who, at age 4 and in one note, named an arrangement of ‘Rubberband Man’ by the Spinners.

Edward Cowan was born on September 13, 1946, in Sullivan, Missouri, the first of four children of Elmer and Irene Cowan. His younger brother Timothy (Tim) (baritone saxophone) preceded him in death. His younger sister Kathy (Hunt) (French horn) lives with her husband Barney (trombone) in the family home in Sullivan, MO, and youngest sister Cindy (White) (oboe) lives with her husband William (Buddy) (percussion) in Poplar Bluff, Missouri (both music educators). Ed loved to tease his nieces and nephew Jerusha (El Paso, TX) (violin), Joycelyn (Olathe, KS) (violin), Dr. Lauren (Springfield, MO) (oboe) and Thomas (St. Louis, MO) (percussion), and Joycelyn’s trio of Isobel (violin), Lucia (cello) and Remy (viola) know Ed Cowan as E.D. Ed (always the teacher).

Ed enrolled in a master’s degree program at Wichita State University which he did not complete. After being drafted in January 1969, Ed Cowan enlisted in the United States Army. Not wanting to shoot people or have people shoot at him, in the ‘interests’ section on the enlistment form he did not select infantry or logistics or office – he used the fill in the blank section and wrote B-A-N-D. On July 23, 1969, the day after the birth of his first child Dean Cowan (saxophone), Ed Cowan left for basic training and upon completion was assigned to the United States Army Continental Command Band at Fort Monroe near Hampton, Virginia. He marched in the Orange Bowl and the Rose Bowl

Following an honorable discharge from the US Army with the rank of Sergeant in 1972, Mr. Cowan joined the faculty of Sikeston Public Schools as a teacher. Ed completed his delayed master’s in music education degree at Southeast Missouri State University, was Sikeston’s 2004 Teacher of the Year (Sikeston Chamber of Commerce) and served as regional president of the Missouri Music Educators Association. After 32 years educating thousands of Sikeston students, Mr. Cowan retired in 2004.

Ed Cowan could fix just about anything. Musical instruments? Child’s play. Disassemble a weed eater and put it back together prior to the internet? No problem. In his garage, Ed Cowan once replaced the entire physical engine on his vintage 1963 Saab 96. The Saab 96 played to Ed’s mechanical and mischievous tendencies. It had a two-cycle engine – just like a Lawn Boy lawn mower you mixed the gas AND the oil in the gas tank. He would get stares from strangers at the gas pump as he poured oil into the gas tank. On more than one occasion, someone would ask him to ‘please stop’. ‘People look at me like I am crazy’ and that was funny to Ed Cowan.

Ed loved puzzles for reasons similar to why he loved music and mechanical things – the structure is well defined. He would playfully bait his wife Jackie into comparing music theory and English grammar. Ed would ask, ‘If English has structured rules, please explain ‘i before e except after c’ to me again, starting with weird science.’ He also had a fondness for National Parks and would take thousands of pictures on hikes and trips and giddily talk about photo after photo for hours. His family remains flummoxed about this particular passion – if there was structure, it was visible only to Ed.

In addition to being an educator, Ed Cowan was actively involved in the local community. He was a member of Hunter Memorial Presbyterian Church from his arrival in Sikeston up until his death. He was the church choir director for decades and served as an elected Ruling Elder of the church. Ed was active athletically in the community, playing softball, basketball and volleyball. As supporters of the Sikeston YMCA, Ed and Jackie Cowan were literally the first of four to utilize the Y’s pickleball court because ‘we are too slow to keep playing tennis’. Both Ed and Jackie are advocates for youth and women’s athletics.

Ed served as President of the Sikeston Little Theater for several years and directed the orchestra for many of the Little Theater’s musical productions. Ed said he wore the crazy hats ‘so it is easy for the cast to see the music director’. It was also for the whimsy. He was a part of the ‘founding group’ of the Sikeston Cotton Ramble bicycle ride.

Ed could play most every musical instrument and his musical knowledge was broad. While visiting an ‘antique’ store in Shanghai, China, his daughter in law commented that she liked the candle holders on display. Mr. Cowan replied, ‘That isn’t a candle holder. That is a Tibetan Yak Horn’ and proceeded to remove the candle and extend the Yak Horn by about 4 feet by pulling on the telescoping ends. Putting his lips to the filthy mouthpiece in 2004 Communist China, Ed Cowan made his first ever Yak call.

Ed Cowan – the kind, gentle man and passionate music educator - was angry with the Parkinson’s disease that afflicted his last few years. In retrospect, his departure from the Cape Girardeau Municipal Band 2021 because ‘I can’t keep up’ was a first visible sign. On July 19, with his wife by his side, Ed Cowan stood up and headed for the exit. He didn’t make it to the front doors. But he had made the decision to leave.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.nunneleefuneralchapel.com for the Cowan family.