Donna Hopkins

Donna Hopkins, who with her late husband, Glenn, educated generations of students at O’Donnell High School, died Monday at a Lubbock hospital after a lengthy illness. She was 80.

Donna and Glenn, affectionately known by their students as Mama and Papa Hop, gave more than three decades to the small farming community of O’Donnell.

The high school sweethearts from Tahoka married while attending West Texas State University.

After graduation, they began their education careers at O’Donnell. While Glenn coached and later served as high school principal, Donna was a business education teacher who taught everything from typing to economics. She also was the yearbook sponsor.

Their efforts to better the lives of their students did not stop with graduation. They assisted in finding scholarships, financial aid or jobs that matched their students’ abilities and aspirations.

In addition to classroom instruction, Donna excelled in UIL extracurricular activities, perennially coaching district and regional champions in debate, persuasive and informative speaking, journalism, typing, as well as poetry and prose interpretation.

Under the direction and Donna and Glenn, O’Donnell’s One Act Play casts competed at the state finals in Austin nine times, including eight of the last ten years they directed.

In 1986, Donna coached the top two debaters in the state finals of the Lincoln-Douglas competition. That same year Donna coached O’Donnell to a state championship in poetry interpretation. It was O’Donnell High School’s first championship at the state finals.

In 1991, Donna was one of first recipients of the UIL Sponsor Excellence Award. Among the 10 recipients that year, Donna represented the smallest school.

The auditorium at O’Donnell High School is named for Glenn and Donna Hopkins.

Donna continued to teach after Glenn’s death in 1997 at the age of 53. In 2000, Donna retired to Lubbock where she served on the board for the Lubbock Community Theater, was a UIL speech and debate judge, and conducted regional debate competitions at Odessa College and Texas Tech University.

She remained close to her former students, becoming “Grandma Hopkins” to the children of her students.

On February 7, 1944, Donna Kaye Copelin was born in Tahoka. Her parents, E.W. “Bud” Copelin and Jean Porterfield Copelin, preceded her in death.

She is survived by her brother, Laylan Copelin; sister-in-law, Jodie; and numerous cousins, friends, and former students.

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