After a career spanning four decades, award winning columnist Sylvia Cooper has decided to put down her pen and declare herself a retired journalist.
This time, she says she means it.
While Cooper will not be writing her weekly column anymore, she may appear now and then when the mood strikes.
As a colleague and even a protegee of Sylvia Cooper, I can say that my heart is heavy as I, along with the rest of the community, will miss waking up on Sunday mornings with a cup of coffee and Sylvia’s column.
I call her my Fairy Godmother.
Cooper started her career in Valdosta as a ninth-grade high school English teacher and later taught remedial English at Valdosta State University.
“I taught the remedial English classes, which were the classes the professors didn’t want to teach,” Cooper said.
Wanting to be a journalist, Cooper applied to the Valdosta Daily Times in 1983 and later moved to Augusta in 1990 where she eventually took over the government beat column from the retired and deceased Margaret Twiggs at The Augusta Chronicle.
However, for Cooper, it would be 16 years of grunt work on the streets in Augusta as a news reporter before the City Ink column would appear in 2006.
City Ink brought back deep insights into city functioning, filling the void left by the death of Margaret Twiggs.
Twiggs was legendary in Augusta for ferreting out corruption in government and “calling it like it was.” Few people at the time of Twiggs’ retirement thought anyone could ever fill her shoes, but Sylvia Cooper not only brought her research skills to the table, she also brought her biting wit as well.
“Sylvia Cooper leaves a legacy of being one of Augusta’s finest investigative journalists during her long career. Sylvia developed a wide range of sources and wasn’t shy about sharing her opinions, which added spice to her columns,” said Phil Kent, publisher of James magazine, who worked alongside Cooper at The Augusta Chronicle.
Cooper also had the knack of charming the very people she would harpoon in her weekly column. A favorite target of Cooper’s was former commissioner Marion Williams who she called a turkey so many times that she ultimately proclaimed him to be “Turkey of the Year Emeritus in Perpetuity.”
“I tell her that her name is actually Sylvia Cooper Rogers Williams, because we’re like an old married couple. We fight and carry on, and she always gets the last word,” Williams said.
Former Augusta City Administrator Fred Russell said that Cooper was so on-the-spot with gathering the inside scoop, he sometimes relied on her to find out what was going on in his own government even though he was the top dog.
“I had to read her column to find out what I was doing,” Russell said.
Former Augusta Mayor Deke Copenhaver once wrote a poetic ode to Sylvia even though she relentlessly referred to him as the “Boy King” in her column.
Ernie Rogers, Cooper’s husband, has long been her biggest fan and says she always sets the highest standard of integrity for her work and for herself.
“Sylvia believes completely in the government of, by and for the people. She also believes journalists share the duty and responsibility in serving the people. Politicians who get those values confused and believe the people are there to honor and serve them will forever find my lovely wife a fierce enemy,” Rogers said.
My first encounter with Sylvia was in 2006 when I was a cub reporter for WGAC radio. I sat next to her at a commission meeting, introduced myself and we soon became friends and found ourselves hanging out weekly watching the commission together.
During the meetings, Sylvia would lean into my ear and whisper things that nearly made me wet my pants in laughter. She would say things like:
“I wish he would just shut up. I mean, who does he think he is impressing with this nonsense? He is just strutting around like a peacock.”
And:
“He keeps talking and talking and talking. I don’t wish ill health on anyone, but I wish he would come down with a small case of laryngitis, but I don’t even know if that would shut him up.”
And:
“I would rather have a root canal than listen to any more of this.”
Sylvia suggested to me once that I should include circus music in my radio reports on WGAC about the commission. I did, and the general manager of the station came running down the hall yelling, “What in the hell is going on? We don’t play circus music in newscasts!”
Sylvia and I eventually became collaborators to find out what was being discussed in the commission’s executive sessions at a time when we knew they were shielding themselves from the press and the public.
We had a great ruse. I would kneel down next to the commission committee room’s air vent with my cell phone in my ear so I could stand up quickly if needed and carry on casually.
Cooper was my lookout.
Once, a young TV reporter saw what we were doing and said, “You’re going to get all of us in trouble.”
Cooper snapped back, “Mind your own business…by the way, that’s a pretty dress you’re wearing, I like that.”
I remember George Escola from WJBF and his cameraman nearly doubling over in laughter.
Cooper says that her curmudgeonly attitude hid the fact that she truly liked many of the people she covered over the years, and her humor wasn’t meant to be at all offensive. She says that what she found to be funny, her readers found funny, too.
“I tell the truth as I know it, and people find it funny. I love that. I love to make people laugh. I called Deke Copenhaver the ‘Boy King,’ but it was all in fun and he knew that,” Cooper said.
Yet, underneath Cooper’s veneer of a humorist lies a hard-core researcher. There have been plenty of times where I have pored over reams of documents with Cooper, and most often, if there was a needle in the haystack, she was the one to find it.
Former Augusta Mayor Bob Young, a former Augusta journalist, calls Cooper’s final retirement the end of an era.
“She is the last in line of the columnists that were dedicated watchdogs. She was diligent and determined. I think she is the greatest writer to come here locally. She can’t be replaced,” Young said.
I have to respectfully disagree with Bob Young on just one point. While the era of Sylvia Cooper contributing a weekly column to the community is over, her influence and her legacy is cemented.
Cooper is a teacher at heart. She has taught the next generation of reporters right here at The Augusta Press to be curious, tenacious, nosy, meticulous and even bitchy when the occasion calls.
When I called Cooper shortly after she left the Augusta Chronicle and told her I wanted to start a newspaper, she told me, “You take the bull by the horns, and of course, I’ll write for you. I love it! I love it!”
The fact is that Sylvia Cooper was one of the sparks that led to the ignition of The Augusta Press, and she will always be a part of our family and our community, even though she has decided to hang out with her doggies and her husband rather than sit through commission meetings for the future.
Scott Hudson is the Senior Investigative Reporter and Editorial Page Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
