VICKI COPELAND

             Vicki Copeland, Director of Married Student Housing at the University of Southern Mississippi, lives in the Oaks District of Hattiesburg and enjoys running, hiking, and bicycling.  An active member of the Pine Belt Pacers, Vicki supports all of the local races and activities that the club sponsors and is active in many charitable causes.  Her love of running has grown stronger since 1994, when as she was forced to accept the loss of her fourteen-year old son Taylor, who passed away in a rodeo accident.  Since then she has bravely moved forward, the pursuit of fitness, great friends and family, and many once-in-a-lifetime trips helping her in her recovery from that tragedy.

            Vicki was born and raised in west Texas, spending many of her childhood years growing up in the very same house that President George W. Bush lived in as a child.  She moved to Hattiesburg sixteen years ago and has since decided to make it her home.

In the early spring of 1997, Vicki teamed with several local runners and participated in her first distance run, the Sutter Home Napa Valley Marathon.  Since then, she has completed the Inaugural Rock-and-Roll Marathon in San Diego, bicycled across Vermont, and completed a rim-to-rim crossing of the Grand Canyon.  At the top of all trips however was her voyage to Kenya as a guest of the great Olympian Kip Keino, whom she befriended while he was in Hattiesburg training his athletes for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.  During the time she is home, Vicki enjoys spending time with her son Lucas, and a host of friends and family.