Marshall Copeland
Music has been a common thread through Marshall Copeland’s life. From growing up playing multiple instruments in the Dublin band, to touring the state with Heath Allen and the Fabulous Blue Aces, to driving cross-country listening to album after album as a truck driver, he’s always found a way to fill the spaces in his life with songs.
Copeland graduated from Dublin High School in 1990. He attended Tarleton for a couple of semesters but didn’t graduate, and for the next few years he worked odd jobs around Dublin and Stephenville. He was a statistician for the sports section of the Dublin Citizen for a while, and worked in construction. “The job I had the longest during that time was working at Domino’s Pizza,” he said.
One day in 1995, Copeland ran into his high school friend Heath Allen. “He said, ‘I want to start a band — go get you a bass guitar and let’s start one,’” Copeland said. “So I went to a pawn shop and bought a guitar and we started practicing.”
Copeland and Allen had actually been in a band once before, in high school. Together with their friend and fellow Dublin student Darren Prater, they played one song at the National Honor Society talent show, and won.
Once they started playing again, Copeland, Allen and their drummer Eddie (last name?) were soon joined by Prater (and later Steve Hamilton and David Wade), and named the band Heath Allen and the Fabulous Blue Aces. In 1997, they recorded an album, and completely sold it out.
“We played a ton of gigs all over the state of Texas,” Copeland said. “We opened for Pat Green one time, and the Great Divide, Charlie Robinson and Reckless Kelly. We used to play at City Limits in Stephenville quite often and we played in clubs in Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Abilene — we played all over the place.”
The band even came full circle when they played the intermission at the high school talent show. “It was pretty cool that we got to play there again,” Copeland said.
Copeland played with the band for five years, until 2000, when his lifestyle changed a bit. “I had a fiance and she had two sons, and it just felt like time to get a job that made more money,” he said. “The whole time I was in the band, the band came first and job second.”
He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do, until he was visiting his parents and his father suggested he go to truck driving school. “He said that around 10 o’clock in the morning, and by 10 o’clock the next morning I was signed up for truck driving school and starting the next Monday,” Copeland said.
After four weeks of school, Copeland immediately found a job at a Wisconsin-based company called deBoer Transportation. “I drove my whole career, 17 years, with the same company, which is kind of rare in trucking,” he said. “We mostly hauled paper products, they’ve got all those paper mills up in Wisconsin. They had all these contracts with paper companies across the country.”
Over Copeland’s 17-year career he drove 1.76 million miles, and never once received a ticket or got in an accident. He won 23 safety awards, and drove all over the country from the mountains of the west to the hills of the southeast.
He enjoyed the long spaces of solitude while driving. “I’m a guy who is not afraid to spend time alone,” he said. “I just enjoyed driving and listening to music and audiobooks and all that. Being out there alone in a truck was perfect for me.”
In 2017, though, Copeland decided he wanted to stay put for a while. “I’d been gone for so long,” he said. “I got divorced in ‘09, and after that I’d stay out on the road anywhere from four to six weeks at a time and then maybe come home for a couple of days. I made a lot of money but I got to a point where I just wanted to come home.”
Since then, Copeland has been working in Stephenville. He spent nearly five years working for Homestead Properties, a real estate company in the area, as the manager of their self-storage facility.
Then, last year, he found another job working for King Title Company in Stephenville. “The day I left my job and the real estate company, I called a friend of mine who owns King Title Company and asked if he needed some help,” said Copeland. He said, ‘Well, I need a researcher, so come on down. He hired me immediately and it’s been great.”
The job consists of researching the history of the property titles that come through. “Sometimes you only have to look at what’s happened to the title for the last couple of years, but sometimes there’s nothing available and you have to research all the way back to the late 1800s,” he said.
Copeland enjoys learning the history of the area through his work. “It’s interesting too, because I’ve lived in Dublin and Stephenville my whole life and I know a lot of the names I see on titles, including my own family names from the early 1900s,” he said.
Copeland hopes to stay at his job until he retires for good. When he has free time, he enjoys listening to music, reading, and spending time outside. His parents, George and Carol Copeland, live in Early.
Throughout his life, he’s found inspiration in his family and other role models. “My father is my hero, and my brother,” he said. “And then a band director I had in high school, Mr. Endley. They all had a big influence on me through music. I haven’t been in a band or played in years, but still, music is so important to me.”
Editor’s Note: This column chronicles what Dublin graduates have done since high school. If you have any suggestions for other grads, email publisher@dublincitizen.com.