Tony Cope is a native of Savannah, Georgia, who retired after thirty years in public education, serving as a teacher, head baseball coach, administrator, and creator and long-time Director of the award-winning environmental education facility, the Oatland Island Education Center. As an adjunct to his work at Oatland, he participated in a ten year research project tagging and studying the habits of the American alligator, and travelled extensively in East Africa and Central America. He was a member of a long list of State and local boards, served three terms as president of the Savannah Symphony and was featured in the book, Movers and Shakers of Georgia.
Since moving to Ireland, he has received a Rotary Club award for leadership for work with the “Towards A Better Understanding” project, an exchange program involving high school students from Belfast and Cork City. Cope has kept his ties with Savannah through the writing of several articles for Savannah Magazine, as well as co-writing the script for, and performing in “Moon River-A Reflection” - an Irish tribute to Savannah native Johnny Mercer, whose centennial has been celebrated during 2009 in Savannah, across America and throughout the world..
Now living near Kinsale in County Cork, with his wife Ellen, (and six cats!), Cope divides his time between writing, playing golf, and building dry stone walls.
Other Projects
Following his 2009 debut as scriptwriter and performer in the highly-acclaimed and very successful centennial celebration of the life and songs of Johnny Mercer – Moon River, A Reflection, Tony has co-written and performed in a new production, “The Rat Pack & Friends”. A resounding hit of the 2010 Kinsale Arts Festival, the show will return for a three-night run in the Everyman Palace Theatre, Cork City, in March 2011.
Future projects include an almost-completed second book, The House On Gaston – about growing up in Savannah during and just after World War II, and a third in progress, entitled Stealing Stones, which recounts Cope’s experiences of moving from Savannah to rural Ireland.
