Marian Cooper

Beloved high school science teacher Marian Frances Wilkerson Cooper of Brinkley passed away September 13, at the age of 99. Mrs. Cooper taught biology and chemistry to generations of students in a teaching career that spanned 35 years. Known for her kindness and ability to make learning fun, her students invariably referred to her as their favorite teacher.

Marian was born in Cotton Plant on January 15, 1923, the first of three daughters born to Robert Roger Wilkerson and Mamie Lillian (Crafford) Wilkerson. She and her sisters grew up in Cotton Plant, helping at the family store and John Deere implement dealer, The Leader Company.

Graduating from Cotton Plant High School in 1940 as valedictorian, she went on

to graduate from Arkansas State Teachers College in Conway. There, she was president of her leadership organization, secretary of her sorority, a member of the prestigious national scholarship organization Alpha Chi and a member of the Civil Air Patrol. Her aviation class consisted of 49 men and Marian.

At 17, she defied convention and earned her pilot’s license, in a time when few women flew planes. After her first solo cross county flight from Brinkley to Stuttgart to Little Rock and back, her first passenger in her Piper Cub was her father. Aviation also led to meeting her future husband, Harold Cooper, when he landed his plane one day in the pasture behind her home. They would raise three children together, Roger Clyde, Paul William, and Cathy Jane Cooper.

At Brinkley High School her classrooms were laboratories. Her students were required to learn the periodic table, learn to name the bones of the body from “Shadrach,” an actual human skeleton, put together collections of insects including butterflies and to research their own family trees.

Her students knew that at any time they could be gently called on to recite the scientific name of an animal, the chemical name for table salt or the correct spelling of a word.

Retiring in 1984, Marian continued to be an active member of her community, as a member of the Cotillion Club, her retired teachers organization and Gli Amica. She was honored as Brinkley Citizen of the Year and was a member the First United Methodist Church in Brinkley.

Marian’s husband Harold; parents Roger and Lillian; and sisters, Dorothy Wilkerson White, and Anne Wilkerson Morris; predeceased her as did her nephew Robert Carroll White. She is survived by her three children; Roger Cooper and wife Lou Anne of Bellaire, Michigan; Paul Cooper and wife Sharon of Germantown Tennessee; and Cathy Cooper of Memphis, Tennessee, with whom she made her home until her death; six grandchildren; Sean (Susannah) Cooper and Blake (Sarah Keedy) Cooper; Alicia Cooper Chatterton (Todd); Cooper (Liz) Ayres, Morgan Ayres and Sarah Jane (fiancé David Vega) Ayres. Marian leaves four great-grandchildren; Ian and Mira Cooper; and Capri and Paxton Cooper; her nephew Richard Lehmann, and niece Beth Kirk; and her very dear friends Rhonda and Jim Carroll of Brinkley. She will also be deeply missed by her many cousins, friends, former students and fellow educators.