Stan Copeland This year's Chandler/ Brownsboro Area Chamber of Commerce Awards Banquet will bring Dr. Stan Copeland, pastor of Lovers Lane United Methodist Church, back to East Texas.

Stan grew up in Chandler and graduated from Brownsboro High School where he was active in football, baseball and FFA. He graduated from Lon Morris College in Jacksonville and Centenary College in Shreveport.

His parents are Don and Martha Copeland and his sister Jill and brother-in-law Kyle McGill are all of Chandler.

Dr. Stan Copeland became the pastor of Lovers Lane United Methodist Church in April of 1998. At this time, he and his wife Tammy Barnes Copeland moved their young family from Tyler to Dallas. Tammy is a second grade teacher at Nathan Adams Elementary School in Dallas. They have a 21-year-old son, Zachary Barnes, at Southwestern University, and a 15-year-old daughter, Emily Grace, at Parish Episcopal School in Dallas.

Dr. Copeland was reared in a United Methodist Church in Chandler, where he preached his first sermon at 16. His undergraduate degrees are from Lon Morris College in Jacksonville (Associate of Arts) and from Centenary College in Shreveport (Bachelor of Arts in Sociology).

He was an honor graduate of St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri, where he received the Roy M. Brady Preaching Award and Scholarship and the Oubri Poppele Research and Study Award. He received his Doctorate of Ministry from United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio.

After seminary graduation and being ordained a deacon in 1983 he became the Associate Pastor of First United Methodist Church in Henderson. He served First United Methodist Church in Houston for seven years. Then, in 1993, he was appointed Senior Pastor of Pollard United Methodist Church in Tyler. He was 34 years old and this was his first church to be "pastor in charge". In April, 1998, Dr. Copeland was appointed to Lovers Lane United Methodist Church.

Tickets to the awards banquet will be $15 each, and dinner will be from Danny's BBQ in Athens. The awards banquet will begin February 5 at 6:30pm in the Chandler Community Center.

Tickets will be sold at the following locations: 1st State Bank in Brownsboro, Citizen's State Bank in Brownsboro, Brownsboro City Hall, Citizen's National Bank in Chandler, Chandler City Hall, the Chandler/ Brownsboro Area Chamber of Commerce office and the Farmer's Insurance office in Brownsboro.

Jeff Smiley, CBACC advisor, said in addition to all the yearly features of the banquet, the CBACC would like to place an emphasis on recognizing area firefighters this year.

"We normally have Fireman of the Year and Policeman of the year for both Chandler and Brownsboro," Smiley said. "We figured because our community has suffered numerous accidents and tragedies this past year, we wanted to show our appreciation and gratitude for the men and women who go above and beyond. And every one of them is a volunteer; no one is paid."

Because of this, not only will the fireman and policeman of the year awards go out for both towns, the chamber will also recognize every single member of the area's emergency services network, including firemen, policemen and ambulance drivers.

Smiley said there will also be a boot at the welcoming table.

"We as a chamber are going to ask citizens at the banquet to donate whatever they can, and we'll split it down the middle between the fire departments," Smiley added. "This is not the fire departments asking for money, and these guys don't get paid a dime for their work. We want to show our appreciation for that."

All citizens are encouraged to attend the banquet and give the firemen and the rest of the emergency services personnel a round of applause.

"We as a group of community leaders want to make our volunteer men and women feel appreciated, " Smiley said. "They miss work, miss spending time with their families and miss out on a whole lot of leisure time too."