By: Cynthia Adams | Photos By: Nancy Evelyn

“The fact that success required a young Christopher Cooper to take on an afternoon paper route seemed a reasonable price to pay. He learned early on that the most important thing in life was to persevere. This former paperboy graduated from the University of Georgia with a doctorate in August of 1986.”

Christopher Cooper remains in his native Savannah, where history swirls as thickly as morning fog off the Savannah River. It was here that a young man with a paper route determined his destiny. As an adolescent, he was already working and investing his earnings towards a good education.

“I started working when I was 12 years old. I would go to school and come home and deliver The Savannah Evening Press. I saved most of what I earned and began investing in the stock market when I was 16. I sat aside enough to get through college.”

By the age of 20, Cooper adds he had become a determined young man with plans to succeed. He excelled in football, volleyball, cross-country running and other athletics, but had his eye upon something even more difficult to obtain—a doctorate degree.

He entered Armstrong Atlantic State University, and joined the track team. “I lettered in cross-country,” Cooper says. “I was also active in intramurals.” Cooper also was on the bowling team (the champion team in 1968) and also the volleyball team (champions in 1969.) He also played on the football team.

His interests extended beyond athletics and he took on assignments beyond the classroom. Cooper was now also writing for the Savannah paper rather than delivering them. During his undergraduate years at Armstrong, Cooper worked as a staff writer for The Savannah Morning News. “And, I also worked for Levy’s Department store.”

After graduation, Cooper worked for the government for several years before resuming academic pursuits.”When I was 28, I started graduate school at Georgia Southern University and earned an MA in psychology and an education specialist degree in the school of educational psychology and guidance. Then I went to work as a school psychologist with the Macon-Bibb County school system.”

While working as a school psychologist, Cooper observed the stresses of young students in the public school system. “At that time, stress and depression in children was underplayed, and had not received enough attention.” Only more recently has that awareness changed, he notes.

Even though he held an advanced degree, Cooper had a yet unrealized goal—the one he wanted most. “I always wanted a PhD,” he says. Yet by the 1980s, Cooper had developed serious health issues that required medical supervision. He was supported in his ambitions by a personal physician, and persisted in his goal.

“My doctor encouraged me to move to Athens and pursue my PhD in educational psychology.” Cooper did. It was an important, and life-affirming, decision.

His love of athletics was undiminished, although poor health precluded his participating in favorite sports. At UGA, Cooper now took special pleasure in being a spectator. “I’m an avid football fan,” he says, describing himself as a fan who never missed a home game. “I guess I attended so many I cannot even estimate the number,” he adds with a smile.

As a doctoral student at UGA, there were additional obstacles to overcome beyond his health. Nine of the faculty members on Cooper’s five-person dissertation committee would come and go, forcing repeated revisions. He fondly remembers those who made the stress tolerable. “The late Marjorie Gordon, assistant to the dean of the Graduate school, offered some guidance. Dr. Evan Powell was my dissertation chairman, and Dr. Roy Martin was also very helpful.” For all of Cooper’s determination, the process of completing his dissertation became a marathon.

“The hardest part was my dissertation,” he says ruefully, “which I had to write seven times before it was accepted.” His dissertation titled, “The Development and Validation of an Inventory to Detect Emotional Stress in Children,” was duly completed. By 1986, Cooper earned a doctorate in educational psychology and returned to work as an educational psychologist. Yet many avocations still claimed his interest—such as acting, writing and history. He had more than a passing interest in each.

Cooper had long enjoyed acting in musicals and community theater, eventually winning a few movie roles. While beginning graduate studies, Cooper became immersed in the historic drama Roots, written by novelist Alex Haley. The series primary filming took place in and around Savannah.

“A girl I was dating introduced me to the casting director,” he says. Cooper was cast in a role and he appeared in a scene with Kunta Kinte, a main character portrayed in the film. He points out a picture of himself in period costume standing on Abercorn Street during Roots’ production.

“I played a part in the film, and got to know and talk to people like Alex Haley, Lorne Greene, and LeVar Burton,” he says. The film experience fed both his love of history and theater. The production first aired on ABC television in 1977.

“I ALWAYS WANTED A PHD,” Cooper says. “I had a great respect for education, and knew I wanted to fulfill my potential.” He was also a gifted athlete, who studied at Armstrong and Georgia Southern before obtaining a doctorate at the University of Georgia.

Immersed in History

A tall and thin man, with soft blue eyes, Cooper lives in his Savannah home and copes with the challenges of arthritis. He occupies himself with reading and writing. He also remains active in MENSA, an organization for those with a high-IQ.

Chief among the lessons of history is that education shapes destinies. At present, Cooper is absorbed in writing a book in long hand about the legacy and impact of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Roosevelt was also a strong champion of education.

Another of Cooper’s interests concerns the powers of philanthropy and social action.

One of Cooper’s great influences was his maternal grandparents, who lived in Louisville, Kentucky. William George Boston, and his wife, Mary Alice Ray Boston, presented strong examples to him and he recalls them fondly. “He (William George) collected old bicycle parts and built bikes—a couple dozen every year—and gave them to disadvantaged children.” Both were social advocates and their generous spirits affected him. Mary Alice, who died in 1979, was an activist “who marched for civil rights.” Cooper describes her as a passionate woman who lived what she believed.

“My grandmother took in Mammy Jack, who was an ancestor’s slave. They so cared about her, that, in her old age they moved her in with them and took care of her themselves. She lived to be 114! My grandmother always wanted to be called Mammy, too, and so my grandparents were called Mammy and Gramps.”

Cooper believes childhood visits with his grandparents taught him to care about the disadvantaged. He would like to continue his grandparent’s philanthropic example, beginning with the practical.

“I’m very interested in supporting things like the (Savannah) Coastal Harvest Food Bank.” He pauses. “There are a lot of people who don’t get enough to eat.”

Cooper is just as concerned for those starving for opportunity and an education. He has made a bequest to UGA in hopes to benefit future students facing educational hardship. He hopes it might support a student of a special type: “One very deserving, but who is limited by their financial or health considerations,” he notes.

“I got a lot out of my experience at the University of Georgia. I want to give something back, to enable graduate students who may have financial difficulty pursuing their graduate degrees. I think that alumni, whether they got their undergraduate, graduate, or both degrees from UGA, should examine what they got out of their experience at UGA—and try to appreciate that by leaving a bequest, even if it is $100.”