After 41 years of teaching, generations of Santa Rosa County residents have passed through the classroom door of King Middle School’s Dee Copeland. February 19 the school invites the community to join in celebrating the retirement of this legend who affected the lives of so many in and out of the classroom.
Darren Brock, KMS principal, said, “She takes great effort in making history come alive for her students, stressing that the more interested a student is in the subject, the more they will want to learn.” A few of her projects, he said, include mummies, pyramids, volcanoes, the Great Wall of China, African drums, Chinese masks and more. They also learned about world experiences through Barter Day where students learned bartering, Chinese New Year using chopsticks to eat, and Christmas Around the World. Brock also added she invited speakers to come tell their stories firsthand.
The myriad fruit of her labor includes Student Government Association state legislature trips to Tallahassee, food drives, veterans programs, blanket giveaways, Easter basket donations for Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital, and a Valentine’s Day Sweetheart program and dance benefitting a scholarship program.
Brock said, “One of her greatest compliments came from a prior student who called her from abroad during Desert Storm. He simply called to tell her, ‘Mrs. Copeland, I am in the middle of the Persian Gulf. I have traveled the world since I left Milton and it is just like you said. Thank you for teaching me.’ In her own words, ‘This is why I teach.’
Mrs. Copeland’s focus always was on the children and how she could expand their minds. A story she began with took place around a Christmas season.
“I had this young student and the kids were mentioning what they got for Christmas. So when they came to him, he said, ‘I haven’t had Christmas,’ and all my kids just stopped. So what they did, they came to me and said, ‘Can we buy him Christmas? Can we get him something?’ And I said, ‘Well you sure can,’ and I went to guidance and I gave them the money. They got him some clothes, some blue jeans, and stuff like that. Well he knew that our class was behind it and this is a success story… One day, many years later in Wal-Mart, this tall gentleman in a military uniform he went, ‘Aren’t you Dee Copeland from King Middle School?’…’Well, Mrs. Copeland you won’t remember me but one time your class gave me Christmas and I just want to tell you what an impression that had on me all my life.’…I love the classroom. I never wanted to do anything but the classroom.”
Copeland also taught adult education for 35 years at Locklin Technical Institute, retired from there for 3 or 4 years now. She said she saw a lot of her students from middle school. “A lot of them were married. A lot of them were older adults. I love that part of my life, too, because it was a different type of teaching because then they were hungry for an education.”
Brock noted, too, Copeland taught hospital homebound students through Santa Rosa Adult School for 32 years. Copeland said, “I worked with children who were very sick and weren’t able to come to school. I worked with one for six years and she just graduated this year and that’s the joy of my life, to see her graduate. It’s one of the most outstanding programs we have. It’s for children who are ill. Sometimes it’s five weeks. Sometimes it’s fifteen weeks. Sometimes it’s a year…it just depends…and it’s been a big part of my life.”
Copeland praised school leadership for allowing her to take students on various trips. She said when she started at King Middle, students didn’t travel anywhere. “I just left Disney a week ago. We did a leadership conference. It just opened up all these kids. They designed their own sports cars down there. Disney was fantastic to us. They gave us the run of Disney. It was wonderful. I love Santa Rosa County but we need more jobs and opening this field and saying, ‘Down here is this,’ but I’ve always enjoyed the children. I’ve always liked to see them explore new adventures.”
Copeland also thanked her students’ mothers and fathers. She said, “I love my parents. I can’t do this without my parents. I have so many parents involved and they have enjoyed it too because when you get to high school parents are involved but they’re involved on a backseat level. Here they can be involved and watch them.”
According to Brock, Copeland was the Student Government Association sponsor at King Middle School since 1984. Copeland’s greatest moment in teaching she said involved the SGA. “My students (this is middle school) were competing against kids that were going to Harvard and Yale. They had been accepted. We rocked their boat. We won. That was incredible. We were so prepared. At our last meeting in Tallahassee when we passed our resolutions the children were coming out, high school kids, saying, ‘You put us to shame.’” Copeland said her students, sixth-grade children, debated against high school students and answered them point for point. “That’s what I love…We groom our leaders. We need to get them involved.” During this trip, Copeland said one girl told her mom she might go to Harvard. “She was so impressed they were so nice to us.”
On the other end of the spectrum from mummies and kite building, Copeland also fought for middle school sports, one of the resolutions her students pushed through in Tallahassee. Here she discusses youth weight gain, grade accountability, and an emotional outlet. “When I was going to school, I was extremely athletic. I cheered. I ran track. But it was always available to us. Now we didn’t have the girls’ sports teams like they do today but we had intramural sports…I see the need for children in sports, because one thing, I’m a severe diabetic. One of the ways I can control mine is I exercise. Sports are important. The weight gain in children; it’s unbelievable…To me, it’s a great way to be healthy. When I was teaching ninth and tenth grade, those coaches would come to me with a list of their boys. If they’re homework wasn’t up, they wouldn’t play. It was discipline not only in the classroom but in life, too. And my son played football for Carl Madison and my husband died when my son was ten years old, so he had to have good role models. The coaching and the sports at Milton High School kept him in a great mode. Here, so many kids need an outlet and …it would keep them involved.”
In addition to reminiscing about being surprised by her selection for Angels in Our Midst and putting together an economics-based, one-night restaurant called “Dee’s Pasta Palace,” complete with violin players and realistic shift-work, Copeland spoke of why she taught on the middle school level. “This is a difficult age. This is the years you get them and open their minds. I guess that’s why I’m so into clubs and sports and stuff because they can really can make a difference in their lives. It opens doors and bridges that they can cross. I like middle school. I like it because they’re not grown. I love sixth grade because they have such cute personalities. Sixth graders will do anything in the world for you. They want to be in charge of this. They want to do this, but the older they get they start getting more mature. They will work hard but they’re so excited about the change in their lives. ‘Oh, I’m in middle school I get to go to a dance. I get to do this and that.’…They want to be involved.”
While nobody is replaceable, what Dee Copeland does for students after four decades would take an entire staff to accomplish. She said, “When school starts, they will have new leadership. They will have to do what they can do. I’ve been doing this (SGA) for 35 years and I’ve been teaching 41, so you have to let them build their program, but there are guidelines. There is stuff available. I’m going to leave some money in the kitty. So that’s going to be their decision. The food stuff, all that will continue because it’s such a wonderful part of the school. I know everything will be fine. It will carry on.”
Despite not being a regular part of King Middle School next year, Copeland immediately turned to Brock to go over a new program coming to KMS. Brock said, “We’re actually getting a manufacturing academy. When you think of manufacturing you usually think of dirty manufacturing but this is IT manufacturing where we’re actually going to have 3d printers and things like that. And we’re going it in conjunction with Milton High School….They’re teacher’s going to come over and teach it first period starting next year.” Unfortunately, with Copeland’s approval of course, Principal Brock said he will be in Tallahassee next week attending on 3d printing and what the classroom will actually be doing.
Following Brock’s description of the upcoming manufacturing class, Copeland said, “They’re just open to helping the children, and that’s really important.” No words can really wrap up a career spanning more years than the age of this writer, except to say her retirement part is February 19 at 3 p.m. at King Middle School. Everyone is invited to attend and honor one of the most caring, encouraging mentors this county has seen.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Dee Copeland looks back on four decades of teaching