David Michael Copeland 4-26-23

David Michael Copeland was born in American Falls, ID, on Sept. 23, 1943 to Carlyle Copeland and Nedra Copeland. He was raised in Bassett, NB, for a while. The family moved back to Aberdeen, ID, when he was a young boy.
Dave graduated in 1961 from Aberdeen High School and later drafted into the Army in March of 1965. He served as a military police officer in Germany for two years.
When he returned home to Aberdeen he met his future wife, Carol McCall, in 1967. They married soon after. Dave was hired at the Blackfoot Police Department where he worked for six months before transferring to the Bingham County Sheriff’s Department and continuing his work as a Deputy Sheriff for eight additional years. He went on to work and retire from J.R. Simplot after 27 years of employment.
Dave and Carol spent a lot of time traveling throughout their lives. He loved exploring the outdoors. Taking his three boys outside camping, fishing, and hunting was his favorite thing to do. Oh, the stories he could tell over and over to anyone that would listen about those trips with his boys.
The desert was one of the places they liked to go hunting together. He knew the area they went out in like the back of his hand and made sure that the boys always saw something. Even if it was just a rattlesnake in the road that they stopped to mess with. On a camping adventure one time, in the seventies, Dave and Carol discovered one of their favorite places, CJ Strike Reservoir. As they were headed home to Aberdeen after a weekend trip there with the boys, Dave told Carol that this was where they were going to spend their retirement. He was a man of his word.
Upon their retirement they sold their house in Aberdeen and bought a piece of land to build their forever home. This piece of property was right up the road from that very same reservoir in the small town of Bruneau, ID. They lived there happily together for 20 years. They created a home and a life that they loved. Many wonderful memories were made there. They met lots of friends to fish with and had an open invitation to many annual fish fry’s.
Dave even had the opportunity to teach two generations how to catch Perch, Catfish, and Crappie. He taught them a little too well though, if you ask me, and spent most of his time taking fish off hooks after that.
He had a nice big shop built and loved to tinker in it, but one of his favorite things about their home was the giant garden he and Carol planted every year. It was something they could work on together, and they spent hours each year perfecting it. At the time of his passing on April 13, 2023 Dave and Carol were staying with their oldest granddaughter and her family in her home in American Falls. He spent the last weeks of his life with his wife of 56 years by his side and fully surrounded every day by their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.
He is survived by his loving wife, Carol; their three sons, Bill (Anna) Copeland of Hagerman, Alan (Angela) Copeland of Aberdeen and Dave (Nichole) Copeland of Blackfoot; and his sister Ann Hurtado of Pocatello; also, their six grandchildren Lacey (Joseph) Workman, Ara Copeland, Jonathan Copeland, Kylie (Nate) Peck, Ashlyn (Ethan) Dowding and Kamri Copeland; and their five great-grandchildren whom he loved very much. Dave believed that babies made the world a better place and couldn’t contain his excitement as his family continued to grow.
He is preceded in death by his mother and father, his four brothers, and two sisters. Those that knew and loved Dave are missing a giant piece of their hearts today and every day they will go on to live without him. The family will have a graveside and a celebration of life at a later date.