BY SUE M. MORGAN
Staff Writer
PHOTOSBY FARRAH MAFFAI staff Pictures of former Mayor Richard Cooper were on display during Saturday’s ceremony. OLD BRIDGE — A local leader and educator who touched the lives of many children is now memorialized at the center of the township he served for so many years.
In a brief outdoor ceremony under Saturday afternoon’s overcast skies, about 65 family members, friends and colleagues of the late Mayor and Councilman Richard Cooper gathered in the Municipal Center’s courtyard for the rededication of the Old Bridge Civic Center.
Now known officially as the Richard Allen Cooper Civic Center, the building that houses the township’s Parks and Recreation Department will stand as a monument to a man who served all people, but especially children, according to his daughter, Jennifer.
Jennifer Cooper, daughter of the late civic leader and educator Richard Cooper, is comforted by her boyfriend, Adam Falchook, at a ceremony honoring her father. One of several speakers, Jennifer Cooper thanked officials from the township and the Board of Education for renaming a building where her father’s two greatest interests, public service and children, are represented.
“Within this building are housed services that encompass Dad’s two greatest passions — service to community and service to children,” Jennifer said.
A teacher in the district’s schools for 37 years until retiring in 2002, Cooper inspired many of his students to get involved with their communities through public service, his daughter said. Cooper practiced what he preached, serving as the township’s Republican mayor in 1972 and as councilman from 1970-73.
He never had any regrets either, Jennifer recalled while sharing a conversation she had with her father before he died of pancreatic cancer in July 2003.
Above is the plaque on the wall of the township’s civic center, which was rededicated Saturday in honor of the late Richard Cooper. At left, with her mother, Joan, is Courtney Mikos, 13, a previous student of Cooper’s. Courtney was one of the speakers at Saturday’s ceremony. “I asked Dad when it was clear that he wasn’t long for this world, if he would have done anything differently or if he would have chosen a different career path,” Jennifer said. “Without hesitation, he replied, ‘I loved what I did. I wouldn’t have changed a thing,’”
With the rededication of the building in Cooper’s honor, all three structures facing the municipal courtyard are now named for deceased former mayors, noted current Mayor Jim Phillips in his address.
Tom Badcock, director of the township’s Parks and Recreation Department, introduced Voorhees Elementary School Principal Dr. Fran Perrino, who served as master of ceremonies. Perrino, who has described Cooper as his career mentor, ironically was the late educator’s supervisor in his last teaching assignment at Voorhees.
Courtney Mikos, 13, who attended with her mother, Joan, was one of the last students that Cooper ever taught. Now in seventh grade, Courtney was a fifth-grader when she had the popular teacher in class.
Other former students of various ages came out for the ceremony as well. One was Council Vice President Patrick M. Gillespie, who credits Cooper for inspiring him to public service.
“He, more than anybody else, I can thank for my becoming a councilman,” Gillespie said.
Gillespie recalled how Cooper, who was one of his teachers in the mid-1970s at James McDivitt Elementary School, unsuccessfully challenged then-Assemblyman William Flynn for the Democratic incumbent’s 13th District seat. Flynn’s wife, present-day Middlesex County Clerk Elaine Flynn, was a teacher at the same school.
Besides politics, Cooper never shirked at a challenge, especially if it involved his students, Gillespie recalled. He joined in when some McDivitt students tried to earn the President’s Physical Fitness Award one year.
“He even did the 50-yard dash with us in his suit and tie,” Gillespie said. “He always made everything we did fun in and out of the classroom.”
Other speakers included Superintendent of Schools Nicole Okun, Old Bridge Police Capt. Jeffrey Robbins and Board of Education President Annette Hopman.
The civic center building was selected for renaming after Cooper by Phillips and members of an ad hoc committee charged with finding a site befitting that designation. In May, the Township Council agreed to rename the civic center in Cooper’s honor.