BY WENDI REARDON PRICE
Clarkston News Staff Writer
Dr. John Cowan is bringing in the new year with a big change as he retires from Cowan Chiropractic Clinic after 45 years of being in the community, with his last day on Jan. 6.
“I love what I do,” Cowan shared. “It’s been an absolute ball. I am going to be 73 at the end of the month. It’s time to retire.”
He added he was the first chiropractor in Clarkston and January will be his 45th anniversary.
“When I first became a chiropractor I was the only chiropractor in Clarkston,” Cowan said. “I was the only one of seven in north Oakland County phone book. Now there’s about 400. It’s changed a lot.”
Cowan, originally from Allen Park, found Clarkston because his uncle suggested he come up and look at north Oakland County.
“I didn’t even know what existed up here,” Cowan said. “I had no idea how beautiful it was.”
His uncle drove him around the area for a few days and the day they drove through Clarkston, Cowan knew it was where he wanted to be.
“I said this is it,” he remembered. “This is going to be my town. I just fell in love with it the first time I saw it.”
He set up an office/house combination on Walton Boulevard and Clintonville Road in 1976.
“I didn’t have money for both a home and an office. I bought a home big enough to have a home and office combination,” he said.

When it was time to move to Clarkston, he found a spot on Sashabaw Road and went to the bank to borrow money to put up a building.
They turned him down because there was nothing on Sashabaw Road and told him he would lose money.
“I said I won’t lose my money,” Cowan said. “I went to another bank. They said sure. The only thing here was Food Town and a dentist. I built the building and next thing I knew little buildings are opening up. The road grew.
His first office on Sashabaw Road opened in 1980 where Genisys Credit Union is currently located.
His three offices through the years have
been 500 feet within each other since then.
His path in the chiropractor field began when Cowan finished high school. He went to college right away and had a couple of sales jobs. He had a chance meeting one day with a chiropractor who invited him to his office to see what he did.
“I thought it was neat,” Cowan said. “I asked what do you have to do to be a chiropractor. He told me you need an undergraduate degree and then you need a four-year chiropractic degree. So I got a bachelor’s degree then I got a chiropractic degree.”
He graduated from Palmer College of Chiropractic in 1975.
Cowan met many people, saying Margaret Roth, founder of Food Town, introduced him to everybody in town and L. Brooks Patterson introduced him to everybody in the county.
“Mostly those two told people to come see me,” he said. “Anytime someone had a problem they would recommend me. Next thing I knew I had this huge practice and it kept getting bigger and bigger. There were times we were seeing up to 200 people in a day. I would get there at 7:30 in the morning and nonstop to nine o’clock at night.”
Another person he met was one of his good friends, Paul Rumph.
“He’s retired now,” Cowan said. “He was an inspiration, and I hope I was an inspiration to him.”
Cowan added they always made themselves available to the community in different ways including helping with fundraisers, helping patients understand what a chiropractor does and help chiropractors just getting out of college.
“We used to have classes so people would know what a chiropractic does,” he said. “I started doing classes on Wednesdays for our new patients and they could bring their spouses so I could explain to them what I did. It made a difference.”
For new chiropractors getting into the field, he would help them find a good spot for a practice and helped set up a program to help them manage practices.
Cowan served as President of the Michigan Chiropractic Council, which is now the Michigan Association of Chiropractors. He was also the Michigan representative to the International Chiropractors Association in Washington, D.C.
“Along the way I got invited to the White House three different times,” Cowan said. “I met Ronald Reagan, George Bush and Jimmy Carter. Just really cool stuff and that came about because I was the Michigan representative. It has been a phenomenal 45 years. Now I just hope I can wind down enough to enjoy retirement.”
Cowan explained he was going to retire when he turned 65-years-old, but he couldn’t pull himself away.
“I was having too much fun,” he said. “I kept putting it off and putting it off. I just decided it was time.”
His wife, April, will stay on at the practice to help with the transition. Then, they will head to Florida where they have a condo.
“I loved it down there,” John said, adding they went to Florida because the chiropractor who got him started said he should get a retirement home.
“He said get it early that way it would be paid off by the time I retire. We went down there and stayed with him for a couple of days. April and I fell in love with the place,” he said. “It’s going to be a great move. We probably have just as many friends down there after all the years of being down there as we have up here.”
Dr. Ken Murkowski is taking over the practice and has been meeting with patients.
“He is a spectacular guy,” Cowan said, sharing he has been best friends with his dad for years. “He will do really well here. He is moving over here because he is getting married to a physician’s assistant from one of the hospitals in Detroit. They bought a home in Troy. It worked out good for everybody. Just a marvelous guy. I was really lucky to have him there and available.”
Cowan laughed, “I remember when his mom was pregnant with him. Little did I know he was going to be taking over my practice.”

  Cowan retiring