Month: January 2011

This photo is a two-fer. It shows one of my favorite law enforcement officers, Trooper Norman Copeland, and the reason I’m a fanatic about seat belts.

Trooper Copeland is working a two-car, head-on crash that happened on Hwy 61 north of Fruitland. Six people were taken to the hospital. The car didn’t have seat belts or any of the modern safety devices, and you can see how the passengers became flying missiles.

The steering wheel is bent and broken; the back of the front seat is deformed from the rear seat passengers pitching against it. There’s a hole punched in the windshield from someone’s head and there’s a big dent in the dashboard, also from a head.

Why you should wear a seat belt

There were no fatalities, but injuries included

• Back injuries
• Severe facial lacerations
• Chest injuries
• Two broken legs
• Broken jaw
• General cuts and bruises

WWII Vet, Trooper, Sheriff

Norman Copeland was a World War II Vet who served in both Europe and Asia. After he joined the Highway Patrol, he moved to the Cape Girardeau zone in 1962. He was promoted to corporal in 1967, and to sergeant in 1967. He served as zone commander until he retired in 1983.

He became Cape County Sheriff in 1986 and served until he resigned in 1994.

At a dinner in Copeland’s honor when he retired, Presiding Circuit Judge Bill Syler said, “Nobody ever looked better on a witness stand as a highway patrolman than Norman Copeland,” adding that his gray hair, neat uniform and warm smile made him a convincing witness to any jury.

That was what I remembered about Trooper Copeland. It could be the middle of the night in a driving rainstorm and he wouldn’t have a hair out of place. He was always cooperative at the scene and went out of his way to answer all of my rookie reporter questions. There was a Missourian editorial complaining about access after he became sheriff, but I always found him to be helpful.

The photo at the top of the page may have won a minor spot news photography award, but I can’t be sure.

I was told to grab a camera and go downstairs to the business office to shoot some photos of Missourian Accountant S.P. Neal celebrating his 70th birthday and the anniversary of 48 years with the newspaper. Two of my photos of the celebration ran on the front page of the paper, but this picture I shot with a little half-frame camera on a lark one day when I was walking through the office captured more of the essence of the man.

Minimal contact with accounting

I had minimal contact with the folks in the accounting department. From time to time, though, one of the staff would be dispatched up to the newsroom to beg me to deposit my paychecks so they could balance the books.

See, even though I was only making $50 a week, plus another $20 or $25 in freelance photo money, I didn’t have all that many expenses. I lived at home, so about all I needed to survive was a little cash for gas and photo supplies. You could get a pizza for about three bucks and Lila worked at the Rialto, so movies were free.

I had more money left over on Missourian pay days than when I was making 20 times that in later years.

Newspapers offered lifetime employment

Mr. Neal started working for The Missourian in 1918, right out of business college. The paper itself was only 14 years old. His 70th birthday coincided with his 48th year with the paper. I searched for his obituary, but couldn’t find it so see how many more years he worked. [See update below.]

Given color TV

The paper and his coworkers chipped in to buy him a color television set. That was a little funny, because it was newsroom style to pretend, as much as possible, that radio and TV didn’t exist. We would refer to “a local television station,” even though there was only one.

Bean counter AND cartoonist

In addition to his math duties, Mr. Neal served as the paper’s cartoonist in the 1930s. He picked up the nickname “Coach” about the same time. He thinks it might have been because the Central High School football team had defeated a Paducah, Ky., team through the use of a strange play which Mr. Neal illustrated in The Missourian.

A man you call Mister

Mr. Neal was one of those old-time, classy guys who made working at newspapers special. You may have noticed that I usually refer to folks by either their first or last names in this blog. S. P. Neal was one of those folks who earned the “Mr.”

S. P. Neal Obituary

My friend, Shy Reader, is better at searching than I am. She sent me a copy of Mr. Neal’s obit. He went on to work another 10 years, retiring as secretary-treasurer in 1976. He died Jan. 2, 1987, at the age of 90.