Jeffrey Allen Copland

Jeffrey (Jeff) Allen Copland, age 64, of Prospect Heights, sadly left our world on July 4, 2024, after a life richly lived and known as an avid golfer, entertainer, astronomer, British Travel Consultant, guitarist, singer, and the best doggie daddy this world has ever seen.

Jeff is survived by his wife, Cynthia (Cindy) Marie Copland (nee Howley) of Mount Prospect and his brother Donald Scott (Nancy) Copland. He was born to his late parents, Donald Charles Copland and Virginia Copland on October 6, 1959. He is predeceased by his late brother Bruce Copland, grandparents, aunts and uncles. Jeff was a cherished nephew, beloved brother-in-law, and caring uncle and cousin. He had numerous friends and his warm and outgoing personality is what we all love about him and what we will miss the most.

Visitation and Funeral Services will be held for Jeff on Saturday, August 17, 2024 at Saint Paul Lutheran Church, 100 South School Street, Mount Prospect, Illinois 60056, with visitation at 10:30am until the time of the funeral service at 11am. Inurnment is private.

Jeff graduated from John Hersey High School in 1977 and went on to graduate from Elmhurst College in Business Administration and Marketing.

Jeff had many careers in his life and he was always reinventing himself when the industries changed. He was a guitar teacher, a bank teller, he owned and ran a company called British Travel Consultants; he was a Karaoke DJ, a sound technician, an accomplished guitar player, an entertainer, and a limo driver.

Jeff was a member of two astronomy clubs. His knowledge of the night sky was absolutely incredible. He could name just about every star in all the constellations. And he could find deep sky objects by star hopping. His telescope had a drive corrector, so once he was locked on an object, it wouldn't drift out of the field of view with the rotation of the earth. His photos were published in several astronomy magazines. He was most proud of the Messier Marathon that he did in the 1990's with his amateur astronomer friend, Ed. This is only possible once a year, and you can see all of the Messier objects in one night, but you have view them in a certain order because they are up at different times during the course of the night. They started when it first got dark and ended just in time before it got light. They both had telescopes and were at the same location but had to do this independently. Such a cool accomplishment.

Jeff was an avid golfer and got a double eagle on the 15th hole at Old Orchard Country Club. This is very impressive. It is a par 5 and he shot a 2. This was back in the day when the best clubs were persimmon.

Jeff had an encyclopedic memory. It was amazing how much he knew and he could pull information from his memory like you google something on your phone. What he knew, he knew by heart. If he didn't know, he wanted to learn. He was so good with people and could find common ground in any situation. He would find out what interest they had and carry on a conversation. In any walk of life. He could pull up facts, dates, history, current events, and song lyrics. He could listen to a song he had never played before, and figure out how to play it in a remarkably short time. Figure out the key and then try some chord progressions and play it and sing along. He was in bands and played school dances then when he was old enough to be in bars, he would open up for big names like Survivor. Jeff and Cindy had a band at their wedding and Jeff had his guitar with and played a few songs with a few of his band mates!!

Jeff and Cindy hosted Karaoke shows for many years and Jeff was not only the DJ, he also ran sound and his sound was described on numerous occasions as delicious and everyone had a great time. He got the highs, lows and mid-range just right and he adjusted the levels for each singer to make them sound their best. Jeff was already an experienced lead singer from all his years in bands. We did live shows where we had backing tracks and Jeff played guitar. He absolutely loved being on stage and could do singing impressions of his favorite singers. He also did speaking impressions. He actually transformed into the person. Mannerisms, voice inflections. Anyone who saw him will remember him as Robin Gibb, JFK, Buddy Holly, high school teachers, Tony Blair. One of his best was to recite the wedding vows from Charles and Diana's wedding. He sounded just like both of them. And he could even play the speaking part of the archbishop of Canterbury as he presided over the ceremony.

Jeff and Cindy met in 1984 at Mount Prospect State Bank. He was a teller at the walk up part of the bank and Cindy was working at Van Driel Medical Supplies. She brought in the deposits and they had easy conversations through the bullet proof glass. They both started noticing that somehow, after Cindy was standing in line for the next available teller, his available light seemed to go on at the precise time that Cindy was first in line. It was purely coincidental, of course. They started dating on July 25, 1986.

Jeff and Cindy got married on May 26, 1990 after a two year engagement. Over the years, they became avid hill walkers and completed all but a few of the Ordnance Survey walks in a very worn out English Lake District Pathfinder guide. And the majority of the walks in the Yorkshire Dales walking book. Most of the hills seemed more like mountains because they are flatlanders. They did get to the top of a few high peaks that were around 2000 feet. They climbed one Munro, The Eildons, in the Scottish Borders with their friend Walter. Jeff and Walter go way back to the 1980’s and played golf at Ladhope in Galashiels when it was an 18-hole course.

He loved Britain and he traveled there every year. His first trip was with his parents when he was 18 years old and he loved it so much that he took his first solo trip in 1983.

Jeff made friends everywhere he went. He was accepted as a fellow countryman and loved by countless people in the UK and we have maintained these friendships for the past 30 years. It is incredible. We have been told that we are great ambassadors for America. We would hire a car in London and drove all over England and Scotland putting thousands of miles on the car.

We fell in love with Border Collies when we saw them working the sheep in the fields. We adopted Nessie in 1992 and Skye in 1994. Jeff played Frisbee with them every day of their life. Rain or shine and as our vet said, she had never seen two more fulfilled and happy and healthy dogs in her whole career. She wished all her patients could have had owners like us. They were a real joy. We took long walks with them. Played ball and Nessie actually invented the trick that got Jeff and our dogs onto the David Letterman show in 1996, in Chicago at the Steppenwolf Theater. There is a pretty lengthy audition process. Jeff described the trick perfectly on the recorded message. Out of thousands of phone messages, Jeff was picked to have a phone interview. Then he had a live audition. And then the final 4 dogs were on the show. Jeff was so comfortable on stage and filming was done at 5pm in real time. But taped and shown later. So we were able to come home and watch it on TV. As soon as the Stupid Pet Trick Segment was over, the calls started streaming in.

Jeff lived a full life and always kept his hopes and dreams alive. Not many people have seen a total solar eclipse in their lifetime and Jeff and Cindy have seen two. They were in the center of the path of totality for the Total Solar Eclipse August 2017 in Dixon Springs Illinois and very near the center for the Total Solar Eclipse April 2024 in Brookville Indiana. These were amazing experiences because we had cloudless skies for both events. It was well worth the drive to have maximum totality and to see the diamond ring.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.lauterburgoehler.com for the Copland family.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made out to:

Saint Paul Lutheran Church

100 S School Street, Mt Prospect, IL 60056

or

John Hersey High School Northwest Suburbs

1900 E Thomas Street, Arlington Heights, IL 60004