Carrigan Members

Paul Keen

Paul was born and raised in Atlanta, GA where he grew up going to the Cathedral of Christ the King. His great-great-grandmother’s family left County Westmeath during the Great Famine and settled in Savannah, GA. After graduating from the University of Georgia, Paul took a teaching position at St. Bernadette’s Catholic school in Lakewood, CO. He taught P.E. and Technology and eventually moved into a full-time tech career. He now resides in Aurora with his amazing wife and hilarious daughter. Paul is a huge music fan and has a massive record collection (including a rare live album of Joe Strummer with the Pogues). He enjoys playing music and learning foreign languages. He is conversational in Spanish and French, but is also working on Portuguese, Swedish and Irish. His wife currently teaches at Annunciation where he learned of the Carrigans and decided to join. At a height of 6’8”, he is easily found in a crowd. Find him and say hi sometime!”

Jim and Betsy Chappell live in the heart of Denver at 16th and California along the 16th Street Mall. Their family is known as “The Chappell Army” with its 18 children and grandchildren. They have been best friends for 55 years, since they were 5 and 6 years old and have been married for 39 years. They love bike riding and local breweries. Betsy is a beloved Speech/ Language Pathologist with Denver Public Schools and has been designated as “distinguished” among the 10,000 people that work for Denver Public Schools, less than 1% of which have received this title. She has spent her career working with high-needs children in underserved areas. and Jim is a recovering attorney and the Director of Operations for Colorado CarShare. Jim has been a Carrigan Hibernian for about 8 years.

Kevin Croghan

-Carrigan Division Historian

Kevin lives in Centennial, Colorado with his wife, daughter, dog, and cat. He’s a full-time dad and part-time educational consultant. He enjoys camping, hiking, fishing, and bicycling, and he does his best to represent the Irish people when he competes in highland heavy athletics. Occasionally, you might just find him brewing cider or whittlin’ something.

Michael Lockette

Airman Lockette lives in Wetmore, Colorado, where he and his family run a cattle ranch raising grass-fed Dexter cattle. He enjoys the outdoors and spending time with his beautiful, and growing, family.

Jerry Schempp

Jerry was born in Chester, So Dakota in January, 1941. He has lived in South Dakota, California, Iowa and Colorado and went to Columbine grade School, Steck, Smiley Jr, High and East High School growing up.

Jerry spent some time at The Citadel and The University of Colorado. During his career, Jerry sold insurance and then worked for Autrey Bros. for 30+ years.

He was married and has 3 great Sons, and 3 grand kids… who have stolen his Heart:   Henry, Luke, and Macy.

Tom Cowhick

Descended from generations who resided on North American soil before the American Revolution, I was born August 23^rd 1952 at St. Anthony’s Hospital, Denver. Coincidentally, the date was also the fifth Wedding Anniversary of my parents, Willa Jean (Asher) and Thomas Lloyd Cowhick. Born the third child of their union, I was the first of six boys. We children would eventually be nine in number. And to this day, not a felon among us. Maybe it was the bloodlines. Thanks to the tireless works of my uncle Jim Cowhick, my dad’s brother, my sister Jenean Huckaby and my brother Jim Cowhick, I can report that the first child of Irish immigrants born on American soil was Patrick Cowhawk (spelling is correct). He was born in Pennsylvania in 1752 and is listed as a Patriot by the Daughters of the Revolution, having participated in the War of Independence. There have been other Patriots from both sides of the family. Among folks my ancestors rubbed elbows with were Danial Boone and Abraham Lincoln. You can look it up. The first best gift my parents gave me was the place I was born. I grew up around Washington Park, belonged to the parish of St. Vincent de Paul and graduated from the grade school. (Incidentally, my parents were married in what was then the basement church in the current school building, prior to the building of the existing church.) I made lifelong friends, played sports, chased girls, became an altar boy, learned to camp and fish and generally had a happy, typical, All American childhood. I followed my older sisters to St. Francis de Sales high school in 1966 and graduated without major incident in the allotted four years. I chased girls, kissed a few, got pretty good at baseball and basketball and went on to a year at the College of Santa Fe on an athletic scholarship. I left college after the one year. Typical of the times, I thought “finding myself” was really important, even though I knew not if any such thing was possible. So I went a lot of places looking, I guess. After a short apprenticeship in rough carpentry, I rode freight trains throughout the west, from Chicago to California, stopping to pound nails when necessary. I hitchhiked to other places east, including the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia. I chased girls… Returning to Denver, I settled in to the first of my careers working for a custom home builder, honing my carpentry skills  (not to mention chisels…heh). I met and married the love of my life, Marilyn.  Seeing that butt-crack mechanics were few among the captains of industry, I entered into the world of sales and managed to square a good living, along with Marilyn, with which to raise our four kids and send them to good schools. After forty years of marriage, Marilyn and I apply ourselves fastidiously to our current job, that of spoiling our grandchildren and then sending them home. I have returned full circle to the carpentry trade and continue to contract small projects.