Edward Copeland

1933 - 2022

Edward Copeland
11/16/1933 - 10/01/2022
Edward Lee Copeland, 88, of Sugar Land, TX, passed away October 1, 2022.

He was born to Grace Gregory and Claude Fayette Copeland in Shreveport, Louisiana, on November 16, 1933, their only child. After graduating from Fair Park High School in Shreveport, he attended Centenary College, graduating with a B.S. in mathematics. He later attended Louisiana Tech in Ruston, Louisiana, graduating with an M.S. in physics.

Ed married Jane Martin on February 10, 1956, with whom he celebrated 66 wonderful years in marriage. He leaves behind his wife, two sons, Charles and James, and six grandchildren - Jami, Alec, Charles Jr., James, Alyssa, and Ryan.

As a young child, Ed showed a talent for music, but was forbidden by his father, Claude, to learn an instrument. Unknown to his father however, Ed's mother, Grace, put him in clarinet lessons and let him join the elementary school band. When the band gave a concert, Ed played the solo clarinet part in Schubert's Ave Maria, which happened to be his father's favorite song; Claude was so moved that he never again stood in the way of Ed's music lessons. Ed went on to play both violin and clarinet in the Shreveport Symphony while attending high school. At age 16 he also began playing saxophone in the jazz clubs around Shreveport, and after high school, he played sax with the Sam Wimbish orchestra, and toured the country with the Tiny Hill Big Band in a fleet of Packard automobiles, covering 60,000 miles in 11 months. In this latter endeavor, he also gained the uncanny ability to take restful catnaps anywhere, anytime and under any circumstances.

Ed had long, successful careers in both aerospace engineering and music. In the 50's, Ed worked for the television station KTBS in Shreveport, both as a photographer and as a band leader for a TV show called Five O'Clock Rock. On his wedding night in February 1956, Ed's band played "Love and Marriage" on TV while his bride watched as she dressed for the wedding ceremony; after the show, Ed left the stage and joined Jane to be married in a ceremony at her mother's house.

Ed was drafted into the Army in late 1956, and after basic training in Arkansas, he served on active duty in Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, as a composer and arranger with the 440th Army Band and was honored to play in Washington D.C. for President Eisenhower. Ed received letters of commendation and was honorably discharged at the end of his duty, after which he and Jane returned to Shreveport, where Ed finished his B.S. in math while playing music on the side. At this time, they also welcomed a new baby, their son, Charles, into the family. Ed and family then moved to Ruston, Louisiana where Ed obtained a master's degree in physics.

Ed began his professional aerospace engineering career at this point with Chrysler Missile and Space Division, in New Orleans, where he worked for the next six years on projects related to the Saturn IB rocket booster for suborbital and orbital space flight, before finally settling down in Clear Lake, Texas, near the Johnson Space Center (JSC), in 1966. Here, in 1967, Ed and Jane welcomed their second child, James, into the world, and Ed spent the next 50 years in Clear Lake, working as a NASA contractor at TRW, Lockheed, Rockwell and Boeing on projects supporting the Apollo program, Skylab, Apollo/Soyuz, Space Shuttle and the International Space Station.

Shortly after arriving in Clear Lake, Ed resumed his music career and never stopped, playing nightly in Clear Lake, Galveston and Houston with The Reflections (the Atrium, Jimmy Walkers), the Bobby Holland Trio (the Swiss Chalet), the Kit Reid Orchestra, the Charlie Prause orchestra, the Martin Langford Orchestra, and regularly performing at the Houston City Club, the Petroleum Club, and many other venues. In the early 70's, Ed became acquainted with the Baca family of Fayetteville, Texas, a musical family of Czech heritage that brought Czech folk music to Texas in the 1890s. The Baca family recruited Ed to perform, record and arrange music - Czech polkas and waltzes - and in 1972, Ed toured Czechoslovakia with the Gil Baca Orchestra, serving as a musical director and arranger, and playing alto and tenor saxophones and bass guitar. After he retired from Boeing and the engineering life, he continued playing gigs around town and arranging music for orchestras and singers; he loved playing with the College of the Mainland Jazz Ensemble, played Dixieland every Wednesday night at the Lafayette Cajun Seafood Restaurant, and as recently as 2019 played as a volunteer with the Sunshiners Band, whose happy mission was to spread joy and sunshine by playing for free for senior citizens around Houston.

Apart from his two main careers, Ed Loved building and inventing things in his daily life - sometimes out of necessity and sometimes for pure enjoyment. Twice he designed and built boats in his home garage - a sailboat for use on Lake Pontchartrain and a motorboat for use in Galveston Bay - both of which he used himself and later sold. He loved building radio-controlled, scale airplane models, especially WWII- era planes and fighters, and was a member of the Academy of Model Aeronautics and the Manned Spaceflight Center Radio Control Club, which had an airstrip at JSC for flying model aircraft. In his usual way, he made a science out of an art by developing his own software to automate the difficult heuristic process of interpolating curved shapes for airfoils and airframes with given cross sections - so that he could create better designs and plans for his favorite airplanes.

Best of all, Ed loved his family and loved playing with his grandchildren. He had a brilliant mind and a wonderful sense of humor, and was as sharp as ever, ready with a joke until the moment he passed. He will be incredibly missed by all who knew and loved him.

A visitation for Edward will be held Monday, October 10, 2022 from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM at American Heritage Funeral Home, 10710 Veterans Memorial Drive, Houston, TX 77038. A gathering will occur Tuesday, October 11, 2022 from 11:00 AM to 12:15 PM, 10710 Veterans Memorial Drive, Houston, TX 77038. A funeral service will occur Tuesday, October 11, 2022 from 12:15 PM to 1:15 PM, 10710 Veterans Memorial Drive, Houston, TX 77038. A committal service will occur Tuesday, October 11, 2022 from 1:30 PM to 2:00 PM at Houston National Cemetery, 10410 Veterans Memorial Drive, Houston, TX 77038.