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Copley-Grube inspired students
Former high school and middle school piano instructor Pamela R. Copley-Grube is being remembered by students and peers as a dedicated and inspirational teacher.
Mrs. Copley-Grube died Monday after a long bout with cancer. She was 45.
”She tried to get the best out of every student,” recalled Charles Jerz, a Tucson High School junior who studied with Mrs. Copley-Grube for three years.
”She set individual goals, not just one goal for the whole class. She wanted the best that they could produce. She would sometimes get disappointed or mad at you, but she would forgive you right away,” he said.
Marcia Volpe, THS visual and performing arts lead teacher, recalled Mrs. Copley-Grube’s dedication.
”Pam was in my position a few years ago before she was diagnosed with cancer. Then she went back to the classroom and taught piano,” Volpe said.
”She just was so devoted to her students, so devoted to music. She was a dance teacher, a vocal teacher, an instrumental teacher. She came here to work on the magnet program.”
Mrs. Copley-Grube was born June 22, 1952, in Tulsa, Okla.
She graduated from North Texas State University. A highly acclaimed soprano, she performed at Lincoln Center with cellist Mstislav Rostropovich in 1975 .
She moved to Tucson in 1976, later teaching music and performing arts to handicapped children at Camp Tatiyee in the White Mountains.
The same year, she began a 14-year teaching career at Utterback Middle School, working in creative and performing arts. In 1991, she transferred to THS, where she taught musical theater and dance for two years.
Funeral services were yesterday.
Survivors include her husband, James Grube; parents, Mr. and Mrs. Al Copley; and brother, Darius Copley.
The family requests memorials be made to the Arizona Cancer Center/UAF, 1515 N. Campbell Ave., Box 245013, Tucson, Ariz. 85724.
(Dated May 01, 1998)
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A. Bates Butler Jr., ex-JP, is dead at 90
A. Bates Butler Jr., attorney, investigator, FBI agent and well-known Pima County Justice of the Peace, is dead at age 90.
”He was not just my parent, but my mentor and a friend,” said his son, A. Bates Butler III. ”He was a great example. He did it all in the legal area.”
Mr. Butler died Sunday.
”He always said he thought ending up as a justice of the peace was a culmination, where he got to use all the experience he had gained. He had a lot of common sense, which is nice in a judge.
”A lot of lawyers have called up, saying they had practiced in front of my dad, and that he was a great teacher and a genuinely good guy.”
Mr. Butler was born May 23, 1908, in Wheeling, W. Va. He earned bachelor of arts and law degrees at University of West Virginia, and thereafter practiced law in Wheeling for a decade.
In 1942, he joined the FBI as a special agent. He served in Tennessee, New York, Pennsylvania and Phoenix before moving with his family to Tucson in 1956. He completed his career with the investigative agency here seven years later.
After working for a time for a private company, he went to work in 1965 as chief investigator for the Pima County Attorney’s Office – a position he held until 1970. That year, he was appointed a justice of the peace for the county, and served in that capacity until his retirement in 1979.
He returned to the justice bench periodically for the next several years at the request of county officials.
His son said he enjoyed hunting and oil-painting until failing eyesight interfered. He continued another hobby, trout fishing, until about three or four years ago.
Mr. Butler was a self-described ”lifelong Democrat.”
He was a founding member and first chairman of the Tucson Chapter of the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI. He was a member of the Trinity Presbyterian Church, where he served as an elder and trustee.
Mr. Butler and his wife of 62 years, Mary, were avid supporters of the American Field Service, and had hosted three foreign exchange students.
Survivors include his wife, Mary; a daughter, Marcia Sherman of San Antonio, Tex.; a son, A. Bates Butler III of Tucson; a brother, Dr. Andrew K. Butler of Wheeling, W. Va.; and four grandchildren.
A memorial service is scheduled Oct. 11 at 2 p.m. at Trinity Presbyterian Church, 400 E. University Blvd.
The family suggests sending donations to Trinity Presbyterian Church, American Field Service or Tucson Arizona Boys Chorus.
(Dated Oct 03, 1998)
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Printer, WWII vet Joe Tully, 81
• Over 30 years, he saw newspapers go from hot lead to computers.
Joe Tully, a descendant of a pioneer Tucson family and a former composing-room foreman with Tucson Newspapers Inc., died Wednesday after being injured in a fall at his home during the Labor Day weekend. He was 81.
Mr. Tully was a World War II veteran and an employee of Tucson Newspapers Inc., the business agent for the Tucson Citizen and The Arizona Daily Star, from after the war until the late 1970s.
He also was a family man who once said of his young granddaughter, Meredith, ”How many men my age can say their best friend is a 3 1/2-year-old girl?”
”My dad in some ways was just one more icon of his generation,” said his son, J. Michael Tully.
”He gutted his way though the Depression, and he survived World War II. . . . He helped build the kind of life that my generation and my daughter’s generation enjoy today and in some ways take for granted.”
Mr. Tully was the grandson of Charles H. Tully, co-founder of The Arizona Daily Star and superintendent of what later became Tucson Unified School District in the late 1800s.
Tully Elementary School is named for Charles H. Tully and his father, Pinckney R. Tully, the seventh mayor of Tucson.
Mr. Tully’s father was Albert Tully, a founding member of Local 465 of the International Typographical Union and a former employee of TNI, now known as Tucson Newspapers.
Mr. Tully was born in Tucson on Oct. 31, 1916.
He attended the University of Arizona and played on the freshman basketball team before enlisting in the U.S. Army.
Mr. Tully earned a Bronze Star for valor in the Pacific Theater.
After the war, he worked for TNI, eventually becoming foreman in the composing room. He saw local newspapers progress from the days of hot-lead Linotype machines to the computer age.
He was active in the Democratic Party, serving several terms as a precinct committeeman.
”He taught me how to walk precincts and pass out campaign literature,” J. Michael Tully said. ”I vividly remember walking precincts for Jack Kennedy and Stewart Udall in 1960.”
J. Michael Tully said he remembers family dinners that were lively with discussions of current events and politics.
”We didn’t agree but we were always outspoken,” J. Michael Tully said.
He said he will most remember his father’s sense of humor. He made little jokes even in his last hours of life.
Mr. Tully is survived by his wife of 57 years, Margaret I. Tully; his son, who is legal counsel for Tucson Unified School District; daughter-in-law Kristin W. Tully; and granddaughter Meredith M. Tully, now an eighth-grade student.
Funeral arrangements are pending.
(Dated Sep 18, 1998)
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Zellie Capin of top Nogales retail family
• He followed in his father’s business, which was established in 1922.
Zellie Capin, a philanthropist and businessman whose family name was synonymous with retail trade in Nogales, Son., for more than six decades, is dead at age 84 of complications from a lung infection.
Mr. Capin died Tuesday morning at University Medical Center. After successfully completing radiation treatment for Hodgkin’s disease, he contracted a particularly virulent form of pneumonia, said his grandson, Jesse Smith.
Mr. Capin was born Aug. 10, 1914, in El Paso, Texas, son of Hyman Capin and Dora Loon Capin, both Jewish immigrants from Lithuania. The elder Capin had worked in the Manchester, England, area as a tailor before moving to Harrisburg, Pa., with his family. He worked there 14 years before moving to Tucson for his wife’s respiratory problems.
The elder Capin opened a tailor shop here specializing in military uniforms, then moved to El Paso when troops were withdrawn from this area. Later, he followed the 10th Cavalry to Columbus, N.M., but was forced to move when forces under Francisco ”Pancho” Villa raided the community.
The family later moved to Nogales, where the elder Capin went to work there as the camp tailor at Camp Stephen D. Little. In 1922, he established the original Capin’s Mercantile – a business that would dominate retail trade in Nogales for more than half a century. At one point, Capin’s employed 40 tailors.
Zellie Capin was the youngest of eight children, and was too young to work in the store with his siblings when it opened. However, as he grew older, and attended Tucson High School, his father saw to it that he went to work in the store on weekends.
”As an incentive, his father promised him a car,” Smith said. ”He said he jumped at the opportunity, and bought a new Ford for $595 to make the weekend trips.”
Business prospered, and other Capin’s stores were opened in Tucson, Phoenix, El Paso and New Mexico.
Smith said the Great Depression forced the family to close all its stores, save the one in Nogales . Later, other Capin’s stores were established, including the Factory 2 U outlets. Capin’s had 36 stores at the height of its success.
At age 17, Mr. Capin, in partnership with his brother, Jake, and another relative, opened a store in Texarkana, Texas, which he managed. However, when their father died in 1935, Zellie Capin closed that store and returned to work at the Nogales store – a career that would span from age 21 until his semi-retirement, in 1988.
Mr. Capin married Helen Levy on May 23, 1937, at her family’s home in Nogales. Their marriage endured nearly 53 years, until her death in 1993.
The couple built a home on the U.S. side of the border in 1948, along Patagonia Road, and lived there until moving to Tucson after his retirement.
Active in Jewish and medical charities, Mr. Capin provided a nursing scholarship through the Habbjac Program at the University of Arizona and donated a room at the UA Cancer Center.
But his great love was business. ”He loved to ‘work the floor’ in the business,” recalled Smith, ”and his skills and energy were legendary.”
Mr. Capin could often be found in the Nogales stores, greeting customers, making sure they were being properly taken care of, making sales, whisking through the warehouse, organizing boxes and checking inventory.
”Although 14-hour days were common, he came home to lunch each day to eat with his family, often bringing a salesman to join them,” Smith said.
He said peso devaluations, continued problems with the Mexican economy and competition from national retail chains finally prompted the family to sell the business in 1995.
”Those who knew him remembered him as one of the nicest men they ever met,” Smith said. ”He was always a meticulous dresser, and cut a distinguished and handsome visage, with flowing white hair.”
A memorial service was scheduled at 2 p.m. today at Adair/Carroon Mortuary in Nogales, with burial at Nogales’ Temple Emanu-El Cemetery.
Survivors include two daughters, Linda Gross of Oakland, Calif., and Lois Esformes of Los Angeles; five grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
The family suggests memorials be made to the Habbjac Program, the UA Cancer Center or Jewish Family and Children’s Services.
(Dated Sep 17, 1998)
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