A self-described frugal bachelor who led the University of South Carolina's band for 34 years revealed Thursday he's donating $1 million of his savings to the School of Music for band scholarships.
University officials said James Copenhaver's gift is the school's largest ever and will pay for about $50,000 in undergraduate scholarships every year.
"It's hard for a lot of kids to get money to go to school, and if they have to work, they can't do a band activity. So it's important to continue scholarship funding so the band can continue," said Copenhaver, who retired in 2010.
The 68-year-old said he had long been careful with his money with the thought of supporting a scholarship program.
"I'm pretty frugal. ... I'm a pretty good money manager. That's why I have it to give back to the university," he said.
Since it takes about 20 hours a week to devote to band practice, Copenhaver said he was happy to give talented students a chance to help put themselves through school.
"I don't know of many more dedicated students than those in the band," he said.
Tayloe Harding, dean of the School of Music, lauded Copenhaver as a "major mentor" to music students throughout the state of South Carolina, and an eminent music professor who garnered national attention for the USC music program.
"Jim is gifted with a superior musical ear, nothing gets by him," Harding said at a ceremony in the band center to mark the gift.
Copenhaver's perfect pitch, coupled with a mathematical bent, helped him develop teaching methods and band drill maneuvers that revolutionized how marching bands were instructed in the 1970s, said former student Jerry Gatch, band director at Lexington High School outside Columbia for 19 years.
"He's an organizational mastermind," said Gatch, who studied as an undergraduate with Copenhaver and returned for both masters and doctoral degrees in music.
"He had drills laid out on graph paper and dots for the positions of every one of 300 students in the band, all before there were computers to do it," Gatch.
USC's music school has 500 undergraduate and graduate music majors, but more than 1,500 students in other majors take part in ensembles and classes each year.
Alan Kahn, a local real estate developer who is heading the School of Music's endowment campaign, called Copenhaver's gift "really inspiring," not only because it will continue work he began as an educator, but because it ranks among the top gifts to the state university.
Kahn said he'd attended a kickoff in November for a USC-wide campaign that has a goal of raising $1 billion for the university in the coming years. A table was set aside for people who'd given $1 million or more.
There were 10 or fewer at the table, Kahn said. "There are not that many gifts of this type."
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Online:
USC School of Music: http://www.music.sc.edu/
