WLM | arts
M
usician and actor Shawn Michael Perry has come a long way from his
beginnings in Wyoming. Adopted by Wyoming residents Arthur & Bonnie
Perry, Shawn was born in San Diego, California. “I later found out that
my birth mother was from Panama; my birth father was from the Flathead Indian
Reservation in Montana (Bitteroot Salish),” Shawn explains.
The Perry family lived in different Wyoming communities – in 1975, after Arthur
Perry retired from the Navy, the family moved to Gillette, and by 1977, they lived in
Casper, where Bonnie Perry was a Natrona County High School alumna (1959). “As
a young American Indian boy it wasn’t easy to make friends in Casper,” Shawn says.
“When I was in fourth grade I went to Park Elementary School. Elizabeth Cheney
befriended me and was very kind to me. We would have lunch at her house.”
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Wyoming Lifestyle Magazine | Spring 2015