Longtime Cowley County news editor and former owner of KSOK Radio, Shane Farley and award winning Kay County news reporter Sharon Rowen, are teaming up to launch kaynewscow.com, an online-only news site providing content to readers free of charge.
Farley, a former managing editor of the now defunct Winfield Courier, teamed up with Brian Bird and former Courier reporters Dakota Davis, and the late Judy Welch, to launch the original newscow at http://newscow.net in May of 2007.
The name, short for News Cowley, grew and soon http://sumnernewscow.com was born.
Rowen has been covering news and issues in Kay and Cowley counties for 25 years.
A native of Ponca City, graduate of Ponca City High School and Northern Oklahoma College, Rowen earned a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the University of Central Oklahoma before joining the staff of The Blackwell Journal Tribune in 2001.
In 2003, she begin working at The Arkansas City Traveler as news editor.
In 2005, she started a 13 plus year stint at The Ponca City News, that included working as Midweek and Education Editor.
She was named the 2005 Oklahoma Farm Bureau Journalist of the Year for coverage of a landfill issue near Blackwell. She also covered county jail issues, many high profile court cases, and was one of 12 journalists to witness the Clayton Lockett execution in 2014. Rowen has been published in every Kay County publication and others including The Kansas City Star and The Oklahoman.
Rowen’s position and others were eliminated in November of 2018 after The Ponca City News sold, eliminating the last locally owned newspaper in Kay County.
“I have enjoyed working with and learning from the area’s seasoned journalists and editors over the years including Foster Johnson, the late Patti Carmack, Louise Abercrombie, the late Charles Abbott, the late Helen Siebert, and the late Judy Welch. I look forward to working with Shane again, a professional and reliable news editor and business man. Together I believe we can fill a void created in the local news industry.”
