Harley F. Copic

1937 - 2021

(News story) LAMBERTVILLE - Harley F. Copic, a Blade marketing artist for a quarter-century who, off duty, rendered portraits in up-close detail of military aircraft that were displayed at the Pentagon and the National Air and Space Museum, died Tuesday in his Lambertville home. He was 83.

He had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, but his death's cause was not yet known, his son Todd said.

Mr. Copic retired from The Blade on July 1, 2003. He got his start in November, 1978, with the promotions and public service department, as it was known then, and did the artwork for commercial advertising and for material promoting The Blade.

"He was an amazing artist, as far as his fine-art talent," said Lynne Rupley, a former Blade colleague. "He was an oil painter. That was a real strength.

"He was my mentor. He encouraged people and encouraged me to do my fine art," she said. "He was kind of an unassuming person and then when you talked to him, you realized he had this background."

Early on at The Blade, Mr. Copic's illustrations and artwork were done by hand. For most of his Blade career, he produced art and headlines and graphics on a computer. He found that skill helped him in the design of oil paintings back at his easel, his son said.

Mr. Copic became an official Air Force artist, accepted into the Air Force Art Program, in the early 1970s. He'd been fascinated by military aircraft from age 10, when he and a friend were taken by their fathers to Baer Field near Fort Wayne, Ind., to watch C-47 cargo planes. They even got to sit in the cockpit.

He nearly failed art classes at DeVilbiss High School, he told The Blade's Hank Harvey in 1987, because he drew airplanes for almost every assignment. After high school he would watch Ohio Air National Guard planes take off and land at what is now Eugene F. Kranz Toledo Express Airport.

"The pilots looked like the medieval warriors riding off to battle," Mr. Copic said in 1987. "And at the time I never dreamed I'd get to touch an Air Force plane, much less ride in one."

Once accepted into the Air Force Art Program, he got his first ride aboard an F-4 Phantom. In 1972, he took a two-week research tour of air bases in southeast Asia, where he saw the Phantoms in action by the dozen, taking off to provide air cover for bombing raids into North Vietnam. The airmen left an impression on him.

"I've never met anyone who plays or parties as hard as combat pilots, but they have manners and class," Mr. Copic said in 1987. "And when the bell rings they go out and do their mission ... many of them never returning."

He flew on helicopters, bombers, and fighter jets, including a flight through the Scottish highlands aboard an F-15 Strike Eagle fighter jet.

He would not paint a plane unless he experienced it, his son said, whether that was to feel it in flight or, in the case of World War II aircraft, to speak with pilots who did. He became known for his paintings of the P-51 Mustang.

In 2003 he went to the Middle East and wartime Iraq, visiting wounded Americans and Iraqis, including Iraqi children, in a military medical unit.

"I can never ever look at things the way I did before," he told The Blade in 2003. He returned to Iraq in 2007 to join his sons Todd and Terry - both then with the Ohio Air National Guard 180th Fighter Wing - at Balad Air Base.

"The art program cherished his work so much they put together a trip for a few artists, knowing that Terry and I were over there," said son Todd, a master sergeant with the 180th. Terry is a master sergeant with the 113th Fighter Wing in Washington.

Mr. Copic's work was displayed at the Air Force Museum and at air bases; at the Pentagon, and at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

"The best way to explain him is he was an artist all the way through," son Todd said. "He was detail oriented. He knew what he wanted, and he would tell you what he wanted. He was eccentric like an artist."

Born Sept. 19, 1937, to May and and Frank Copic, he was DeVilbiss graduate of DeVilbiss. Poor eyesight kept him out of the Air Force but he was an Ohio Army National Guard veteran.

Before hiring at The Blade, he was an artist for Craft Master, the paint-by-numbers company, and did drawings for a Star Wars-themed set. Buyers were to use provided colored felt pens, not paints.

He and the former Judith Ann Hunter married Oct. 5, 1968. She died Feb. 21, 2015. Their son Jeff died in November, 1963, and son Gregory died in November, 2015.

Surviving are his sons, Todd and Terry Copic; sister, Nancy Perkins; 10 grandchildren, and 14 great-grand children.

Visitation, with coronavirus guidelines, will be from 2-8 p.m. Sunday at the Michael W. Pawlak Funeral Home, Temperance, where a funeral service will begin at 10 a.m. Monday. The family suggests tributes to St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in Toledo.

This is a news story by Mark Zaborney. Contact him at mzaborney@theblade.com.