Clayton Allen Ferrell was born on May 14, 1951, in Alamosa Community Hospital to his mother Elsie and father Kenneth. He died on the open road in Montana on Sept. 27, 2024, and given how much he hated hospitals, he probably picked the right place to depart from us.
If you knew him and loved him like his family does, you know that Clayton was a one-of-a-kind human being. He was loving, stubborn, generous, hilarious, opinionated, mischievous and cantankerous. If he got in his mind to do something, no one anywhere could stop him. (Good thing that stubborn trait didn’t pass on to anyone else in his family, especially not his daughter).
He was athletic, poetic, great at math and seemed to know a little bit about everything and a lot about the important things. Whether you had engine troubles, a sliding glass door that sticks, a boss that’s out to get you or a relationship that’s ending, Clayton was the first call for many of us.
Clayton was the eldest boy in a family of five, joining his sister Kelsie and then followed by Kathy, Sherry and Rick. As the older brother, he took on responsibility for his younger siblings in a deeply mature and loving way. He most definitely did NOT put Kathy or Sherry in the dryer and spin them around. He absolutely was not the one who turned the lights out on Rick in the bathroom, giving him the scare of his young life.
His love for horses began early and he and his sister Sherry used to walk a long way to the corral that housed their horses. In all honesty, I’m not sure if this is Dad’s version of a ‘walking ten miles in the snow to get to school’ story but we’ll just have to take his word for it. Before long Clayton’s love of horses led him to the rodeo and he began a brief career as a teenaged bull rider. Regardless of how many times he was thrown off, he got back on with a smile on his face which ended up being how he tried to approach life, too.
High school was a difficult time for Clayton and it was music and athletics that pulled him through. His senior year of high school he played tight end and was captain of the football team. Clayton had dreams of playing in college which might have been realized if life hadn’t had other plans for him. Graduating in 1969, Clayton became a father to a daughter he named Cher Hope and he moved to Denver with his young family.
There began the first of many death-defying accidents that had us all convinced he had nine lives or that he was just plain invincible. Riding his bicycle home from a shift at the Gates factory, he was hit by a truck who ran completely over his chest – how he survived that we don’t know. We do know that when his mom and sister Kathy arrived at the hospital, he was snapping his fingers to the beat of the medical equipment and repeating, “Take me home, take me home.”
He attended Adams State College where touring Europe and Russia to sing with the choir was one of his proudest moments. (For the rest of his life, you always knew he was happy if he was singing and usually the louder, the better.) He compiled enough credits for a degree, but they weren’t quite in the right order. We all think an honorary degree is in order though. Get in touch with us to work out the details, Adams State!
In 1978 he began an apprenticeship with the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers and if you asked him – or even if you didn’t - he was an adamant union man. That’s probably why one of his terms of endearment was always, “My brother!” He had worked his way up to be superintendent of a power plant when he retired in 2009.
While Clayton would be the first to tell you that his daughter (me) is a handful, he found time and energy to be a father figure to many, including stepchildren Jeremy, Mandi and Andi; and step grandson Brady. The step part of his title never mattered to him, he loved with his whole heart regardless of blood relation.
In 2007, his grandson Calian Jesse was born and Dad drove to Colorado from Wyoming on his motorcycle to meet his three-day-old new family member. When Dad held him for the first time, Jesse opened his eyes and the two of them just stared at each other. It was to be a lifelong love affair. As every good grandfather should do, Dad taught Jesse to fish, how and when to cuss, how to tell dirty jokes and that farts are always funny. He cheered on Jesse’s athletic accomplishments in flag football, cross country and track and was always the loudest voice on the sidelines. That loud voice was used for Broncos games, too. One time he and Jesse were watching a disappointing game in a local pub. After one incompletion too many, Dad yelled, “We’re the ones in orange, Peyton!” To this day, that is still a football watching quote in our house.
Clayton married his college sweetheart, Sarah Black, and while she wasn’t the first wife – she was the one who held his heart to the very end of his days. They own an acreage together outside a small town in Wyoming where he kept horses and dogs that rarely listened to him. In the evenings, he’d watch the sun set and at night he’d gaze up at the Milky Way and the stars in an endless Wyoming sky. He'd always say, “I live in the most beautiful place.” Nature and wide open spaces fed his soul.
Clayton loved Mexican food, Pacifico beer, margaritas and was partial to good whiskey. As an agnostic, he did not believe in an afterlife but since I’m writing this and he’s not, I’ll just say that I pray he’s enjoying all those things, riding a horse in wide open spaces, and in the company of his beloved mom Elsie and sisters Kelsie and Sherry.
Dad was a force of nature and it’ll be some time before we all accept that he’s not here anymore. We loved him more than he’ll ever know. Well, I hope he’s getting a sense of that through his two Celebration of Life services in two different towns because so many people love him. He did not want a funeral or any kind of service, but we ignored him. I know he will not be at all surprised that his daughter defied him, once again.
He is held in the hearts of his surviving family: wife Sarah, daughter Cher, grandson Jesse, his brother Rick and sister-in-law Denise, his sister Kathy, and in-laws Patty and Mike. Too many nieces, nephews, cousins and friends to name will also carry his memory. I’ll close with the words of Emmylou Harris who my dad taught me to love, “Gone now is the day and gone the sun / But the songs of my life will still be sung / By the light of the moon you hung.” Vaya con Dios, Dad.
