Lieutenant Dow Russell Cope, Aviation Section Signal Reserve Corps, was killed when his plane crashed near Tours, France, on June 16, 1918. Some newspaper accounts recorded his death as one of the first aviators to die while serving in Europe. He had recently been commissioned a lieutenant. A son of Walter Cope and Inez Mallory, Dow was born in Salem, Illinois, one of five children. He grew up in Yakima where he graduated from Yakima High School. A gifted debater, he was a member of the Stevens Debating Club at the University of Washington which he attended for one year as a Freshman in Liberal Arts. While at the UW, he also a popular boxing instructor at Seattle’s YMCA.
Dow later enrolled at Cumberland College in Lebanon, Tennessee where he studied music, played football and later pursued a law degree. Dow had the distinction of playing for Cumberland on October 7, 1916, when the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets — known as the “Golden Tornado” and coached by John Heisman — beat the Cumberland Bulldogs 222-0 in the most lopsided-victory in the history of college football. A member of Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity, Dow was working as a lawyer at Fort Oglethorpe, in Georgia at the time of his enlistment. Originally buried in France, Dow’s remains were repatriated to the US in 1920 and he was laid to rest at Tahoma Cemetery in Yakima. (bit.ly/uw_cope)