The following text was posted on Shreveport.blogspot.com, Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Willard Cooper, artist and a professor of art at Centenary College for some 30 years, is dead. Cooper died of pneumonia in Costa Rica on Aug 28, said daughter Arden Rembert Brink. Surviving Cooper is his wife, Phyllis Cooper, and progeny.

Among the artists who developed under Cooper's professorship were watercolorist William McNamara of Ponca, Ar, and Centenary art department head Bruce Allen.

Willard and Phyllis attended art exhibits and concerts in Shreveport for some 40 years, and entertained art appreciators at their vine-covered house in Broadmoor. Willard was tall, lean and witty. He used his joie de vivre to keep the art s...