Marty Kopra chose to honor her husband and son with the Lennart and Daniel Kopra Memorial Endowed Presidential Scholarship in Classical Guitar or Music Education because both men immersed themselves in music. Through this endowment, Marty hopes to encourage talented musicians to continue their musical studies and enrich the University community with their performances.

Marty and Lennart Kopra moved to Austin in August 1954, Lennart with a new PhD and a UT academic appointment as assistant professor of speech. The University hired Lennart to develop the audiology program in the Speech and Hearing Clinic. Len assured Marty that they could move if she did not like Texas. They stayed, had four children and Lennart thrived at the University. Len died in 1998; on 5 October 2001 Marty married Thomas Gretzinger, M.D. In 1976, after their children were in school, Marty earned a MEd in rehabilitation counseling from the University. From 1981 to 1987, she worked as a research associate in the Department of Speech Communication. Daniel, Marty’s second son, graduated from the University in 1979 with a BA degree in languages.

Lennart’s original academic major was music. He enjoyed playing his own compositions on the piano. Daniel played piano and guitar and his original major was also music. Len and Dan also played in their high school bands. Len played trumpet. Dan played trumpet and then the baritone horn. In addition, Marty, as well as her other three children, played instruments, all benefiting from band experience in public schools.

Dan started playing guitar on an instrument that was loaned to him when he was twelve. Shortly after that he began cutting lawns, babysitting, and working odd summer jobs so he could save up and buy his own guitar. In 1974, when he was 17 years old, he contracted to have a custom guitar made. The instrument was delivered in 1976 and cost Dan $440. Marty’s father, Charles Martin Witthoft, was a Lutheran minister who started a band and recruited band members from the community of every church where he was pastor. He bought beat-up instruments at second-hand stores, repaired them, and taught children to play them.

Pastor Witthoft organized summer concerts, marched his band in parades, and played functions at different churches. All of his six children played an instrument and played in high school bands. Four of his children continued to play in college bands. Until the family’s older siblings left for college, the family would play at nursing homes and other small venues. The oldest brother, Herman Witthoft, followed in his father’s musical footsteps and organized a German oompah band that featured his three daughters as singers. The band played summer German festivals in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York. Herman also directed the local fireman’s band in Ghent, New York, a small town south of Albany, New York.

Dr. Lennart L. Kopra

Dr. Kopra was a professor emeritus at The University of Texas at Austin, where he taught in the College of Communication from 1954 until his retirement in 1985. He developed the audiology program in the Department of Speech, the first academic program in audiology in Texas. Dr. Kopra was director of the University’s Speech and Hearing Clinic from 1961 to 1972. Throughout his teaching career, Dr. Kopra researched and wrote extensively on a variety of subjects, including the effects of noise on hearing, hearing and the aging, and the use of videodisk technologies with lip-reading research and training. He was active in many professional organizations. Dr. Kopra graduated from Butte High School in Butte, Montana in 1942. For two months he worked as an apprentice in a mine drilling holes and filling them with dynamite. The next shift would do the blasting, and Dr. Kopra described the mine as a “hell hole.” He attended Suomi College in Hancock, Michigan, in the fall of 1942, before he was drafted into World War II on April 5, 1943, and sent to Kearns, Utah, for basic training. Crawling under barbed wire and sniffing phosgene and mustard gas didn’t appeal to him, so he applied for aviation cadet training while at Kearns. His first assignment was Deming Air Force Base, New Mexico, where he flew bombardier cadets in the AT-11 Beechcraft on practice bombing runs over desolate unpopulated areas of New Mexico.

By October 1944, Dr. Kopra was stationed at Bergstrom Air Force Base in Austin, Texas, for C-47 and C-46 transition training. When his unit was deployed to the European front, Dr. Kopra was hospitalized with tonsillitis for a week, then was released and trained to fly the Curtis Commando C-46, and sent to Burma. He served as a US Army Corps pilot and aircraft commander in Burma, where he transported gasoline and other supplies over the Himalayan Mountains, a perilous flight referred to as flying “the Hump.” After the war he was stationed in China and flew missions and personnel throughout the country. One particularly memorable experience happened on January 11, 1946. Dr. Kopra was assigned to fly a mission from Shanghai to Yan’an, China, the communist capital. He wrote the name of the man he was supposed to meet, Mao Tse Tung, in his address book, and next to that, the man’s title “Chairman,” but Dr. Kopra wondered, “The chairman of what?” Before he had an audience with Chairman Mao, Dr. Kopra was told not to speak of military matters, political matters, or religious matters, and if he were asked to dance, he was to dance. He went through a receiving line, and afterwards a woman wearing a quilted Chinese dress gestured for him to dance, so he danced with her to the Chinese music. The next day, his 22nd birthday, he was taken pheasant hunting.

Len was discharged in May of 1946. He continued his service in the US Air Force Reserves and retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1972. He was a member of the Longhorn Chapter (Basha) of the China-India-Burma veterans’ organization, the Texas Retired Officers Association, and the Hump Pilots Association.

Dr. Kopra was born in Virginia, Minnesota, on January 12, 1924, to Finnish immigrant parents; Finnish was his first language. In 1994-95, Lennart and Marty lived in Finland for 13 months, where they researched his Finnish roots and visited with family members. Lennart Lauri Kopra died December 8, 1998.

Len was very proud of his Finnish heritage. He and Marty named their daughter after her Dad’s middle name, Lauri. Lauri is a male name in Finland, pronounced Low(as in how)ri in Finnish.She never had trouble with her name in the United States but one summer when the family was together in Helsinki, Lauri tried to use her credit card at Stockmann’s, a large department store. They would not accept her credit card because of the “male” name on her card. She explained, “I was named after my father… Lauri is a girl’s name in America.” The clerk called the supervisor. Finally, the supervisor let the charge go through.

Mr. Daniel A. Kopra

Born in Austin, Texas, February 26, 1957, Daniel Kopra became an Eagle Scout and was initiated into the Order of the Arrow before graduating from McCallum High School in Austin. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from The University of Texas at Austin in 1979 and a Doctor of Jurisprudence in 1986 from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio. Dan moved to El Paso in 1987 to become an assistant attorney general and in 1989 began service as an assistant district attorney. In 1996, he joined the Public Defender’s Office. Dan was a member of the Texas State Bar and a leader for the Eckankar group in El Paso. Dan died June 11, 2005, while cycling with friends in Canutillo (near El Paso).

Throughout his life, Dan found joy in the outdoors and music. He developed a love for the water at an early age and was an avid swimmer and scuba diver. He frequently went to Balmorhea to scuba dive and had recently taken his first extended diving trip in the Bahamas with friends. Family and friends often enjoyed listening to Dan play piano and guitar; this was a source of great happiness to him.

From Timothy Kopra (spoken at his brother Danny’s memorial service): ” When I was around 6 and Danny was in 6th grade, he was fascinated with the space program and built models of the Saturn 5 rocket, the command and service module, and the lunar module. Since Danny persuaded Mom and Dad how important it was to see one of the moon landings on TV at 2 o’clock in the morning, Danny and I stayed up watching news clips, listening to Walter Cronkite, and waiting for the landing. I really thought it was special that I could stay up so late, especially with my big brother.