A. Connie Keating Godwin

Agnes “Connie” Godwin of Chestertown, MD, died peacefully on Tuesday, November 15, 2016, at Shore Nursing and Rehabilitation Center at Chestertown at the age of 90. Born on July 14, 1926, in Washington, DC, Connie was the daughter of Marie Josephine O’Connell Conway and William Keating Conway, an editor with the Hearst newspaper chain. Connie graduated from Notre Dame Academy in Washington when she was 16, and was an English major at William & Mary College in Williamsburg, VA. As a member of the student newspaper staff, she helped break a story on college quotas that limited admissions of minority students. The story was picked up by wire services and relayed to newspapers throughout the country. Connie returned to Washington and landed a job as a copy boy with the Washington Post, the perfect start for an aspiring journalist. She married a young Marine veteran, Stuart Godwin, and they started a family. The couple lived in Silver Spring for a few years, but after Stu became an FBI agent in 1955, they made the first of several moves, first to Knoxville, TN, and then to Miami, FL. During the 1960s, as the civil rights movement swept the country, Connie became active in an organization in Miami that promoted understanding between people of different backgrounds. Connie was the Catholic member of a panel of women with diverse racial and religious backgrounds, and in later years, she spoke proudly of the panel’s impact on a range of audiences as the group fielded questions, debunked myths, and spoke in human terms of differences and commonalities. When the FBI transferred Stu for the last time, the family moved to Anchorage, AK, a place Connie came to love. She took a job as an editor for the Anchorage Times, (“the largest paper in the largest city in the largest state” Connie would brag), and covered newsmakers in Anchorage as well as in the far reaches of Alaska. Connie made friends she kept for the rest of her life. In the late 1970s, Connie and Stu flew to Washington, borrowed a car and drove around southeastern Pennsylvania looking for a place to retire, but nothing clicked. On the way south to return the car, Stu spotted a sign for Chestertown and remembered that he had seen a musical on a showboat in Chestertown when he was a boy. He decided to visit the town once again. Connie and Stu instantly liked Chestertown and before they left that evening, real estate agent David Barroll had shown them a lot they decided to buy on Birch Run Road. Back in Anchorage, they built their house “by phone and mail” (the builder once mailed a cardboard box of bricks so they could choose their favorite) and after Stu retired in 1980, they moved in. Connie took a job as a reporter for the Kent County News, then edited by Hurtt Derringer, but it wasn’t long before she got another offer she couldn’t refuse. Alaska Senator Ted Stevens knew Connie from her years at the Anchorage Times and heard that she had moved “to Washington,” so he called and offered her a job as his press secretary. Connie’s 20-year Capitol Hill career started as a one-day-a-week job, so at first she continued to report for the Kent County News, but eventually she was working for Senator Stevens full-time. She took an apartment near the Capitol and returned to Chestertown on weekends. When Connie retired in October of 2000, she was the longest serving press secretary in Congress, and—she loved to brag—the oldest as well. From the start of her years in Chestertown, Connie was active in a variety of organizations, serving on boards that included Kent Youth, the Chester River Hospital, the Chester River Health Foundation, Soroptimists, Questers and the Kent County Historical Society. She briefly advised the staff of The Elm at Washington College and taught a series of journalism classes for WC-ALL called “How News Is Made.” Connie and Stu were married for 65 years. Connie is survived by Stu; her son, Mark; daughter, Mary-Stuart “Peekie” O’Connor (David), all of Des Moines; three grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. Her sons, Christian and Gregory, died previously. Donations in Connie Godwin’s memory may be made to Compass Regional Hospice, 255 Comet Drive, Centreville, MD 21617. A memorial service will be held on Friday, March 17, 2017, at 2 p.m. at Fellows, Helfenbein, and Newnam Funeral Home, 130 Speer Road, Chestertown, MD. Interment will be in Arlington National Cemetery at a later date.

A. Connie Keating Godwin

July 14, 1926 - November 15, 2016