photo by Bailey Davidson

Still Waters

In his quiet, soft-spoken yet determined way, Deke Copenhaver has accomplished in his short time what many people thought could never be done.

by Michael Ryan

Rivers get a bum rap. They’re neither as lazy nor wandering nor placid as they appear; there’s an awful lot going on under the surface. And they’re quite often much deeper than we give them credit for.

The Savannah River is such a river. And Deke Copenhaver is such a person.

Like the smooth and serene Savannah, Copenhaver makes it all look easy. But there’s an awful lot that runs under the tranquil surface—a surface that not only conceals the currents below, but also buffers against the wind above.

And it gets mighty windy in these parts. It’s almost hard to remember, now, how contentious and interminable Augusta Commission meetings could be when he took the gavel as Augusta’s interim one-year mayor in December 2005 after Bob Young took a federal job. Both the meetings immediately before and after his ascension were racially charged—so much so that four black commissioners and then-interim Mayor Willie Mays walked out during Mays’s last meeting. Likewise, elected to his first office only two weeks before, Copenhaver was thrown to the wolves in his second meeting, which featured a monumental clash over the firing of the city engineer. “Political storms strike in Augusta” was the headline over Augusta Chronicle writer Sylvia Cooper’s “City Ink” column.

Since then, Copenhaver has been elected by an unprecedented two-thirds majority to his own four-year term, the storms have dissipated, the clouds have parted and the climate has changed. Big job announcements have come from ADP and T-Mobile, Cal Ripken’s looking at building a downtown baseball stadium—and Copenhaver not only gets home in time for dinner, but he also doesn’t see city hall snarling on the evening news anymore.
What has happened has surprised even Copenhaver’s most ardent supporters.

“I’m so proud of what he’s done,” says former U.S. Rep. Doug Barnard—who is quick to remind that he wrote the first letter to the editor supporting Copenhaver’s unlikely election. “I couldn’t imagine that he would’ve taken over the job as he did it. But I could tell during that interim mayorship that this boy had ideas, he had energy, he had initiative. This appeals to me more than anything: He never asked for (government) reorganization. He said, ‘I can work with the system that exists.’ And that says a lot.”

“He’s just matured and developed in a way that I didn’t think was possible so quickly,” adds local businessman Monty Osteen, another early backer.

If the political climate has changed, there are, of course, a number of factors causing it. The conviction and imprisonment of three high-profile state-level leaders from Augusta helped clear the air, certainly. And several elections have ensued. But most observers give Deke Copenhaver a lion’s share of the credit for the city’s improved political scene.

I really and truly do,” says former commissioner and now State Rep. Barbara Sims. “It’s just breathing new life into Augusta. I give him great credit for that.

“As a young person, I believe he brings fresh ideas. He listens to everyone. He doesn’t seem to get ruffled in the midst of chaos, which is always good. He has composure. I think that’s one of the things, maybe, that we’ve been needing is someone who can hear tumult and not respond to it in the same manner.

“I think he’s interested in everybody and in everything, and he seems to appear almost everywhere. I think he’s a breath of fresh air.”

By all reports, that fresh air is being detected throughout Georgia, which previously couldn’t help but notice the dark political clouds hanging over the Savannah River valley.

“I’m going to tell you something,” says Osteen, a member of the Georgia Board of Economic Development. “Statewide now, people have a much higher opinion of Augusta.” State officials, he says, see that “Augusta is finally getting it back together—and Deke Copenhaver’s the guy responsible for it. Economic developers throughout the state are more receptive to looking at Augusta now than they were because of Deke Copenhaver.”

This from a man who actually tried to talk Copenhaver out of running. “I didn’t think he could get elected,” Osteen admits. Indeed, Copenhaver’s initial polling gave him something like 1 percent support among blacks.
“My friends said, ‘You’re so crazy—he won’t get 8 percent of the vote,’” Barnard says.

“We couldn’t talk him out of it, thank God,” Osteen laughs.

Why they couldn’t—and how he managed to pull it all off—may be owing to the depth few knew was there under the surface.

Humility may come easily to the 39-year-old Deke Copenhaver because he knows better than most of us why he’s here: After a large gap between her first three children and her fourth, Copenhaver’s mom, Jane, was concerned that newborn Lisa not grow up feeling like the only child she had been. So at just over age 40, she got medical clearance to have Deke. “So, effectively, I was conceived to keep my sister company,” he smiles. “And I thank her for that regularly.”

orn in Montreal to a family with deep Virginia roots, Copenhaver’s earliest memories include using the “House for Sale” sign as snowball target practice before the family’s Canadian caravan left for Augusta. At age 4, he joined his brothers, Andy and John, and sisters Paula and Lisa, as part of the 12th family in the young West Lake subdivision. There, with a dog named Duke, he absorbed the serenity of the undisturbed Columbia County forest as only a young boy and his dog can.

“I spent as much time in the woods as anyplace else,” he recalls.

Part of Copenhaver’s struggle to win election in 2005 against two political mainstays and fellow neophyte Helen Blocker-Adams was overcoming an image of privilege. Since his father, Bill Copenhaver, had done well in business, becoming CEO of Columbia Nitrogen, “I’ve been painted as a Columbia County kid who had a silver spoon in my mouth.”

Complicating matters, especially in his youth, was the fact that he was painfully shy: It was much worse than that. “I was too shy to go to birthday parties,” he admits. And when teachers in grade school called roll, he didn’t have the gumption to speak up and clarify that he preferred “Deke” to his given “David.”

Like George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, Deke Copenhaver appears to have been born old. “People have often said I had an old soul.” The upside of that, besides an early love of reading, writing and art, is a practical streak as long as a Tiger Woods’s drive: As a teen at Evans High—which he says, in contrast to today’s image, was once considered the “wrong” side of the tracks—he fended off potential steady girlfriends because, as he patiently explained to their frustration, no one is going to stay together at that age, so why start?

As for the “privileged” stuff, Copenhaver has never forgotten that “I was one generation removed from a family of farmers in southwest Virginia.” And his father never let him forget it: This was a man whose own father died when he was 12, who went to Virginia Tech on a boxing scholarship at 16 and who flew B-17 bombers in World War II, and who never, himself, felt privileged while fighting his way up the ladder. “He was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth and he never let us forget where we came from. He taught us the value of hard work.

“My mom and dad both taught me and my brothers and sisters to treat everybody the same, to treat everybody as equals, no matter if it’s the garbage man or the CEO of a company. That has stuck with me my whole life.
“I’ve never seen myself as anything but middle class.”

What he also saw himself as, early on, was a journalist, of all things, actually covering sports a bit for the Columbia County newspaper. Might have been a good fit too, what with his love of the written word and his passion for tennis, golf, Georgia football, Tar Heel basketball and all things pro sports. But his dad, and his practical streak, steered him toward a business curriculum at the University of Georgia. Problem was, he found his business classes—when he found them at all—dull and uninspiring. He wonders now if such a shy kid belonged at such a big school. Moreover, after a tough summer job of laying tile, the more leisurely distractions of the campus proved too much. Ultimately, he landed back at Augusta College, where the more intimate setting nurtured him—as did a certain political science professor named Ralph Walker.

“I had no interest in my business classes. I always enjoyed history and English and literature more and did really well in those classes.” He might have headed off on that path too. But under Walker’s legendary spell, he realized that while he wasn’t much for politics, he was fascinated by issues of governance. So political science it became.

Even so, Copenhaver was to hold an Atlanta banking job and no clear sense of direction, when he felt the foundation of his life quake in 1992. It was a tremor that, in retrospect, put him in something of a tailspin.
Before careers in real estate, running the nonprofit Central Savannah River Land Trust and now as Augusta’s chief executive, Deke Copenhaver had to find himself. And as so many of us do, he went looking at a time of great pain and upheaval: in his case, after his mom’s death the day after Thanksgiving in 1992, following an eight-month battle with cancer. It was a week after his 25th birthday.

“My mom’s death was something that really hit me hard,” he says. The ground shifts under even the most solid of upbringings, it seems.

He quit his job and spent much of the next year volunteering in the projects and coaching youths in Atlanta and decided to backpack Europe in 1993—retracing many of the steps the family had taken on his father’s business trip when he was in third grade. The backpacking extended itself, thanks to a friendly backpacker from down under he met along the way, to New Zealand and Australia, where Copenhaver was joined briefly by his father and brother.

The lonely adventure across the pond was one of the formative experiences of his life—and not just because, with so much mixed ethnic descent, Copenhaver was a walking European Union. This shy kid from the backwoods of Columbia County forced himself, as a solitary traveler in a foreign land, to emerge from his shell. By the end of the three months, it’s certain no one knew him as David.

“Everything I’d ever done, I’d done with other people. If you don’t take yourself out of your comfort zone, to my mind, you’re never going to grow. And to me, life is about constant growth. I don’t want to stagnate. There’s so much to learn and I’ve never enjoyed learning so much as I do today.”

It doesn’t hurt the learning curve that, as mayor, he’s been able to talk music with the likes of James Brown and baseball with Iron Man Cal Ripken. “Look at what I have exposure to these days. It’s an amazing life that I lead. I’m just like a sponge these days!”

But back in the ’90s, his father, promulgator of that practical streak, worried that his son’s friends were passing him by. “But I always knew I was not going to do that forever,” Copenhaver says. “I always had faith in myself and that I’d find what I wanted to do and I would find my passion.

“I share that with kids on a regular basis: Never be close-minded. I’ve often found that the best things that have happened to me in my life are the things that I haven’t planned.”

Yet, so are some of the worst, and more rough waters lie ahead—and Copenhaver, four years after losing his mother to cancer, was to lose his first wife, Kelley, to suicide. “By the time I was 30, I’d lost my mom and was a widower,” he says.

He now sees those trials as having endowed him with strength and a big-picture perspective worthy of an old soul. If he’s unflappable, it’s because he knows that everyday problems are nothing to get flapped about.
“I understand there are no guarantees for the future. That is why everybody I know, I tell them I love them on a regular basis. I don’t have time to be mad at people.

“Having gone through those two deaths in a four-year period—at what was still a formative age—I can see the blessing in it now because I’ve helped others deal with losing loved ones. I’ve talked to some people who have considered (suicide) and been able to talk them out of it. I’ve had a friend come to me in that state of mind.”

It’s fair to say that without that inner strength, he might not be mayor today: He and his wife, Malisa, lost her mother eight days after he’d announced his first campaign. “Had I not dealt with grief before, I guarantee I could not have run for mayor and dealt with grief at the same time and been there for my family.” The couple also has dealt with a miscarriage.

It’s that history of loss and recovery that helps Copenhaver understand presidential candidate John Edwards’s decision to trudge on in the face of his wife Elizabeth’s recurrent cancer—especially after hearing her reasoning. And the ability to face such things in a more upfront manner than many others in the proud and private South helps him in his job, he says.

“I think that’s how I’m dealing with the city: Let’s put it on the table; I know we’ve got issues. Let’s shine the light of day on them and deal with them head-on. I realize it’s not going to be a quick fix, but that is how I have to deal with things.

“This job can be difficult. But look at what I’ve been through. It’s not life and death.”

Copenhaver’s quiet coping, mixed with his natural competitiveness, make him a formidable presence, despite the retiring facade. He jokes, “I’ve told people before, don’t let the angelic face fool you. I’ve got a lot of intestinal fortitude because I’ve developed it…through living a life that has not been the easiest at times. It’s not ever going to be easy for anybody. Don’t be overcome by the world.”

Between the teachers having to learn “Deke” and seemingly everyone else needing to rehearse “Copenhaver,” “My name has been butchered my entire life,” he says. So when his campaign coordinator assembled some kids and turned them loose on trying to get his name right, he thought it was a hoot—as did a public that came to know this political newcomer as the kids did: “Deke Alligator.”

“We didn’t feed the kids ‘alligator.’ We just put a camera on them and let them say whatever came to their mind. And ‘alligator’ ended up coming out. Another was ‘Duke Coconut.’

“I think people finally have my name down by now.”

Maybe because he’s made a name for himself. The quirky alligator ad helped his candidacy catch fire, but the kindling came from him: He wore out the shoe leather running under the radar in that first campaign and was a quiet fixture in black churches, which invited him to speak and liked what they heard.

“Sincerity, honesty, a sense of integrity—people sense that,” says Osteen. “And they sense it across racial lines and gender lines and everything else.” From that first stealth campaign to the two-thirds vote a year later, “he turned a very low poll rating into a damn landslide victory, by sheer strength of that personality.”

Perhaps the driving force behind his decision to run was his experience in the Leadership Georgia program—where he heard more than one classmate take note of the chronic political scandals here. “What are you guys putting in the water up there?” was a typical remark.

“I am a very competitive person,” Copenhaver says, recalling how the criticism of his hometown stung him. “It just hammered home to me that we just needed new leadership. And having heard, as I traveled around the state that year, ‘What’s wrong with Augusta?’ I really got tired of answering the question.”

He found solace in one Leadership Georgia classmate and good friend, Atlanta City Council President Lisa Borders—who also had run for an unexpired term without previous experience. “She encouraged me: ‘Don’t worry about what anybody says, if you feel like it has to be done, go ahead and do it.’”

If that was audacious, even more so was his filing for mayor without the blessings of the powers that be. He went out of turn. No, he hadn’t run before. But he’d run the city’s green space program for four years, been on the boards of 10 nonprofits, chaired the Metro Y, been named to a land conservation committee by the governor—and knew he could build consensus. “To be perfectly honest, I couldn’t think of anybody better than myself to do it.”
If that sounds cocky, it’s not—just confident. Fact is, Copenhaver’s humility has been on parade all along, as when he unashamedly asks the city to pray for him at the monthly Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast.

Some folks still steer clear of the breakfasts, considering them a political stunt. The Rev. Greg Young of Thankful Baptist Church is one of those who have stepped up to lead the events along with Matt Aitken and the Rev. Gregory Fuller. Copenhaver, he is convinced, “is seeking some type of spiritual guidance in governing God’s people. It’s for all people. This is the goal the mayor has; this is the vision we share with him.”

Yet, supporting even a popular and inclusive white mayor comes with risks. Helen Blocker-Adams, who finished third in the 2005 mayor’s race, quickly chose not to oppose Copenhaver the following year—and, in fact, endorsed him against Mays after much soul-searching. She knew she’d get a backlash and she did.

“My decision was made after I considered the fact that if I did not endorse a candidate, it would be like one of the commissioners abstaining from an important and critical vote. That concept did not set well with me,” she says.

A year later, she appeared both prophetic and wise when so many others joined in voting for him. “I think Deke is doing a good job,” she says. “And frankly, much of what he is doing is exactly what I would be doing if I were mayor.”

How does one train to be a mayor? Simple: by installing sprinkler systems and laying tile and wiring mobile homes.

“Having worked in a lot of jobs that weren’t particularly glorious gives you a connection to the people who work the hardest for the city,” Copenhaver says.

Moreover, as a former businessman and nonprofit executive, Copenhaver knows that, “This city is not defined by its government. And I think for a while there, it was.” After several elections, a couple of intimate annual retreats and months and months of working together—including new Monday morning meetings between city administrators and commission leaders—“The will of the body is to do better,” the mayor says.

But even more gratifying than all that, he says, is the best part of the job: speaking to kids. “Bar none, that is my favorite thing to do.” What does he tell them? First, that he expects one of them to be mayor some day. Second, that they shouldn’t chase money, but rather their passions. “I didn’t make as much money (in nonprofit work), but I was blessed to find, at a relatively early age, that I got more fulfillment out of making a difference in my community than I ever did cashing a big paycheck.

he same holds true for what I do now. The thing that gives me fulfillment is making a positive impact on the lives of people. If you want to do that at a local level, I’m sitting in the best spot to do it.”

A close second on the gratifying scale is the reception he gets from grateful adults—a reception that can be overwhelming for the shy kid still nestled inside who may just want to get a quick something at the hardware store and get home. But “I don’t know how it can do anything but make you feel good to go out in the public and have people come up to you with a smile on their face and say thanks for doing what you’re doing.”

Was there a moment he knew he’d be okay? Not really, he says; he had confidence in his meeting-running ability going in. Though, “I guess after getting through the tumultuous first few months of last year, I figured if I could make it through that, I could make it through anything. The key to the whole thing has been patience. We are a vastly impatient society.

“I had confidence in the plan of how I was going to run the commission meetings and how I was going to conduct myself as mayor, and what I was going to focus on when I came in. And I was not going to let anybody get me off my game.”

Copenhaver will be focusing on three goals going forward: economic development, healing the racial divide and better government efficiency. He’s made great progress on the first two; on the latter, he’s called in help from the University of Georgia to get the Augusta government thinking in several-year increments. He also said the city has a fiduciary duty to get on with the special purpose local option sales tax projects taxpayers have approved and funded.

If he’s put a lot on the table, he’s blessed with the same quiet tenacity he and others have seen in his father. One acquaintance said of the elder Copenhaver, now battling Parkinson’s disease at 82, “He wasn’t loud and boisterous, he just kept coming.”

Deke Copenhaver can’t remember the last pro game he’s watched. Asked recently to create a painting for a charity auction, he brushed his first canvas in more than 20 years. He loves writing poetry, but unless you count well-written memos to commissioners, his recent prose for deceased friend Gracie Harison may be his only verse for awhile.

It’s hard to find time for yourself or your family when you’re mayor.

Still, Copenhaver told campaign operatives that his wife came first during the 2005 campaign, especially so soon after losing her mother. And today, despite sometimes doing mayor stuff seven days a week, he insists, “My faith and my family come before my job.”

Since it’s harder to get away these days, when he does escape, he really escapes—to a boat off his one-time home in Beaufort, for example, or just a lengthy daily run with his wife. And while his history includes such heavy reading as Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, The Stranger by Albert Camus and—a recent favorite—His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis—you get the feeling he’d rather get some nice uncomplicated beach reading and disappear for a few days.

Another “perfect day” in DekeWorld might be a good, long, uninterrupted day of yard work. As long as there’s nothing on the agenda. Again: The best things in life come unplanned.
Either way, he says, “Whatever the perfect day is, it does not start with an alarm clock.”

What he’s learned, though, from his heavy reading, well-punctuated with biographies, is that leaders are simply human beings doing what must be done, often at great cost to themselves. “People don’t make history, history makes people,” he says. Of the historical figures he’s read about, he concludes, “They make it look easy in retrospect.” Though he knows it isn’t.

“I sometimes think about that in what I do. People say, ‘You look so calm and nothing seems to ruffle you.’ I’m like, ‘I’m getting good at making it look easier than it is.’ But I take great strength from knowing that average, ordinary human beings have been able to accomplish extraordinary tasks.”

It’s a lesson he loves to share with hopeful schoolchildren, whom he tells: “Not only have I come through those life experiences and been able to just make it, I’ve been able to be successful beyond what I ever thought possible. Those things strengthened me and enabled me to do what I’m doing now.”