Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper

            Tim Cooper is a simple man from a small town. When he isn’t in the classroom

teaching history, he is working in his church, Cornerstone Community Church, as a preacher and music pastor. Born in the Philippines to missionary parents, Cooper has always made God a fixture in his life. His passions are history, music, God and his wife. He enjoys working with students and helping them with problems in the classroom and life in general. Mr. Cooper is one of my former teachers and I recently had a chance to sit down with him in his classroom.

Timothy Wyatt: What was your hometown of Camdenton, Missouri like?

Tim Cooper: It was a small country town; it had one stop light. It was not a very big town. The biggest thing was our school and our football program, basically. I guess I forgot the one big thing, the Lake of the Ozarks, which is what the attraction is there. It’s a pretty big lake; it’s a resort lake. Summer was really busy, but you know, nine months out of the year it was like a small farm  town.

So, Williamsburg is kind of a big town in comparison?

Except for the lake. Within ten minutes we had a town that was bigger than Corbin. Like, my town wasn't very big. We had a few restaurants, a square, you know, nothing much. Ten miles away we had a town that felt like a bigger city. It had a mall and things like that.

Didn’t you act as campaign manager for your dad in a local election back home?

I did.

How was that and what was that actually for?

It was for state representative. It was interesting. I was coming right out of college, so that was my first job. I  had worked on some campaigns, I mean, primarily just doing stuff for campaigns like putting up signs and making phone calls. So, I had done that in college. Running for my dad I was quote-unquote campaign manager. Basically, that meant I was the only hired person for the campaign. Now, my dad was really making most of the decisions because he knew what he wanted to do and he knew the most people. What I mainly did was went around with a lot of people and knocked on doors and I shook hands and I would be there when he couldn't be there. I made phone calls, this is crazy, I don’t know why we did this but to try and save money we decided that we would make our signs. So, he bought a screen-print machine and we screen printed thousands of signs.

How did that end up turning out, actually?

He won. He won pretty big. And that had nothing to do with me, he just knew so many people. So, he was actually a state rep for eight years there. He was elected four times because it’s every two years. He started in 2002 and just ended in 2010. I ran the campaign from May until November and then I actually moved here in January of 2003 and started teaching.

What actually brought you here? Did you have a prior connection or what?

Yeah, my parents are from this area. My dad grew up in McCreary County, so he is from Whitley City. My mom is from Leslie County, out in Hyden. She went to Cumberland College. Then the big connection is Lonnie Anderson is my uncle. Basically, I had family here saying, “We need a history teacher, why don’t you come try this out, you have a history degree.” I didn't even have my degree in education at first. I had a history and political science degree and I was back in classes getting my education degree during 2003. I came just thinking I’d be here for six months. I was really just doing Lonnie a favor. He said, “I really need you to plug a gap. You may like this; we can talk about that if you do.” But, I never had any plan of being here more than six months. Then I realized, I like teaching and then I realized that I had bills to pay and this was a job. Now, this is home. Ten years later I’m here and I like it here and I like the pace of life here.

If you weren’t a teacher, what had you planned on being?

Oh, a lot of things. At first I went to college to get a political science and history degree planning to go into law to be a lawyer. Then when I got into college I interned with a lawyer and realized I didn’t really like what they have to do. I realized very quickly that I’m not a paperwork person, I’m not real organized and I knew that wasn’t what I wanted to do. Then I thought about working in government service. I had really looked at and was really excited about doing FBI or CIA, something like that. I thought about going into the military into intelligence or working for the state department and trying to be an ambassador. Those probably would have been ok, but I guess the big thing that changed for me was that I realized a lot of those people lie for a living and you don’t have much of a family life. I may still try to get my doctorate to teach on the college level. I’m also maybe looking at trying to be a guidance counselor.

I saw that you were a part of the 2011-2012 Whitley County High School improvement plan. What is your role in that?

This year I just became the department chair for the history department and so, ultimately, anything that goes through the history department goes through me. When we are talking about school improvement or thinking about ideas, I’m kind of the voice of the history department.

From what I could gather, the main goal of the plan was to improve the school’s Academic Performance Index. What measures are being taken to actually utilize that?

That is a great question. The hardest thing is student motivation, in my opinion. One of the big things the state changed this year is that, while you used to take the CATS test, now it’s called end of course exams and it counts for your grade.

Really?

Yeah. It counts for 20 percent of a student’s grade in U.S. history. Now, for us, some of the things we are trying to do is change this whole program. The state of Kentucky contracted the people that do the ACT to write these exams, so we have had to make our in-class tests harder to try to get them used to harder tests. I have to expose them to harder questions and we have to talk through them. They have to get used to those questions and experiencing them. Those are just some basic things we are trying to do school-wide.

Did the scores matter before? I know I always took them very lightly.

We as teachers and as a school district would be held accountable. What it could mean if you scored bad enough for enough years in row the state could come in and take over your school. So, that’s how it mattered.

How do you think God plays a role in the way you teach?

I think the biggest way that he plays a role in the way I teach is just caring for my students in general. I can’t always talk about God all the time. I mean, truthfully, it’s not helpful to everyone to talk about God all the time. So, just generally trying to help them, to help them gain a better picture on life, the importance of education and help them through hard times. I do try to take time to make students think about beliefs, whether or not they agree with me. It’s just to say, you need to struggle with these things, like don’t just blow over them like they’re not a big deal. You’ve got to figure that out for yourself. I just want to plant a seed that there is something other than what we see. I think that’s a part of a role as a teacher. A teacher is

supposed to make you ask questions.

Has God and church always been a staple in your life? Is it something that was instilled in you at a young age or was it more as you got older?

Very much instilled in me at a young age. My parents were missionaries, so I was born in the Philippines while they were in the mission field. Then we started a church in our home when I was about five. So, I grew up all around church. Now, what I would say is that—this is what I find to be true with a lot of people who grew up and their parents were involved in ministry—I was very churchy; I knew all the church answers. But, when I hit high school, I was a good kid and I didn’t do really bad things, there were certain limits on what I said I was going to do and wasn’t going to do, but I was kind of going through the motions. From about age 15 to about age 23, while I would have said I was a Christian and I knew who God was and I believed in general, I didn’t live like I believed them. I had a really profound moment at Cumberland Falls in November of 2003 where I basically said to God, “You’ve got to help me change something or I’ve pretty much got to give up this, because I’m just a hypocrite.” And I knew it, I just knew the depths of my hypocrisy. At that moment it was just really amazing to see God move intentionally. Within days Dave Sweet, a fellow teacher here, was telling me I needed to try out his church, he thought I would really like it. Within that week I kind of found a place where I fit it and found friends. So, when I look back it was a big change because I think I went from always knowing about God to really knowing who he was. Actually, in high school I would have told people I would never work within the church, not that I wouldn’t have been a Christian, just that’s not what I’m supposed to do. I thought I would go do something else and be a good Christian doing that. So, things change.

I’m going to backtrack here. You said you were born in the Philippines, how old were you when you moved?

Six months. My parents had been there for three years and I was born right at the end of their time there. They came back and were thinking of going to Africa, but couldn’t raise enough support, so that’s how we ended up in Missouri. The first place I actually lived after coming back though was Corbin. We were here for about another six months.

You said your parents opened up a church in your home when you were younger, how was that?

We really started meeting with one other family that had left a church in town for different reasons. That church is still actually going, my parents don’t go there anymore because they moved. That was all in 1985, so that church has been going for, wow, has that really been going for 30 years almost? My dad is that way. He has founded a lot of things. He’s founded a church, started a Christian radio station, he started a free clinic for people who had lost medical services.

Is that what his actual title is? Is he a doctor?

Yeah, he’s a doctor. He had his own business for 26 years and now he works for a hospital. He’s done a lot of different things.

Obviously, I know you play music. At what age did you begin playing?

My parents made me start taking piano lessons when I was seven. I took them until I was about 12, because as soon as they said I could quit, I quit because I didn’t like the lessons. I took band in middle school and played trumpet for three years and really liked that. I also really loved choir, so that’s when I started singing. During middle school was also right when Pearl Jam and Nirvana became real popular and I had a lot of friends who really liked those bands. One friend in particular wanted me to learn to play guitar. So, I started playing guitar the summer before my freshman year.

Who were/are your musical influences?

There were a couple stages of my life, musically speaking. When I was younger my parents listened to a lot of oldies, so Simon and Garfunkel is my really young musical influences. Then the Eagles because when I was learning to play guitar there were some simple versions of them and it was something I could sing along with. That kind of helped me learn how to sing and play. When I hit college it was Dave Matthews Band, I mean, that’s who I played all the time because they challenged me musically and vocally. Late college to right after I graduated John Mayer was a huge influence on me, but that was a very short period of time. So, those kind of set my general direction. When I started working at the church that I’m at now I started listening to a lot of worship music.

Aside from music, what other things do you like to do in your free time?

I just got married two years ago, so now that I’m married I pretty much spend time with my wife. We do a lot of different things. Probably the primary thing that we do is that I’m a pastor of a church now, so my free time we do a lot with church. Having people over to our house to eat and talk, to having bible studies, to me preaching on the weekends and leading worship at church, that’s our primary free time activity. We also spend a lot of time outdoors. We try to get out and go hiking.

Are you a music minister, youth minister or an actual pastor?

Our church is kind of unique. We actually have five men that are on the pastoral team. So, I preach and I lead music. My official title is worship pastor.

Alright, I’ll end with this. What is a fond memory you have from childhood that stands out?

My parents read to us a lot around the table. After we would be done eating dinner my dad would pull out Sherlock Holmes or Narnia or the Hardy Boys, he would just read to us. We would sit around the table or we would move into the living room eventually and we would be able to just lay down there and fall asleep or whatever and that’s how we would end our nights when I was younger. That was probably until I was about nine or ten.