David William COPPACK

Enid News and Eagle Enid, Garfield Co., OK

10-13-2009

Submitted by: Jo Aguirre

The funeral service for David William Coppock will be 2 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 15, 2009, at Ladusau-Evans Funeral Home chapel. Rev. Terry Chick will officiate. Burial will be in Memorial Park Cemetery. David was born Sept. 19, 1925, in Pawnee, Okla., and passed away Sunday, Oct. 11, 2009, in Enid.

The grandson of Cherokee Strip Land Run pioneers, David grew up in Enid, where he became Okla-homa's youngest licensed pilot in 1941 and soloed for the first time that same year. When he was 17 years old, he lied about his age in order to enlist in the Navy during World War II. Serving on the rescue tug ATR-71, David spent World War II in the South Pacific rescuing U.S. Naval ships that were crippled by the Japanese during battle. After World War II, David attended the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). However, while home in Enid on college break, he was driving through town with his best friend, Jack Haworth, when they saw Jack's sister walking home from her job as a telephone operator. Jack suggested they give her a ride home and David met Ruth Haworth. He suddenly lost the desire to go back to California and finish college. David and Ruth were eventually married.

He had several jobs that enabled him to use his love of flying, including performing in air shows that required him to perform aerial acrobatics and flying high-line patrol for OG&E inspecting high-line wires throughout Oklahoma. He then worked for Beech Aircraft delivering planes to their new owners from Montana to Louisiana. In 1950, he was hired by Central Airlines as a station agent eventually working for Frontier Airlines as a station manager here in Enid for 32 years, retiring in 1982. Through the years, David never lost his love of flying and used his airline employee benefits to fly his family literally around the world free. His wife, Ruth, and their five children traveled with him from Hong Kong to London with frequent trips to the South Pacific where he had spent World War II.

He is survived by his wife of 55 years, Ruth; his four sons, Mike Coppock, Zack Coppock and Pat Coppock, all of Enid, and Mark Coppock and his wife Anne Sturdivant Coppock of Fayetteville, Ark.; his daughter, Becky Coppock Barnes and her husband Brian Barnes of El Dorado, Kan.; two grandchildren; four stepgrandchildren; and one great-grandchild.