The Draper’s Valley Presbyterian Church in Draper (Pulaski County), Virginia is preparing for a memorial service on Saturday, October 29 for their former pastor and PCA leader, Corty Cooper. They have released the following obituary.

Dr. Cortez Alonzo (Corty) Cooper, 80, of Lynchburg, Va., died Tuesday morning, October 25, 2011, in the St. Joseph Hospital, Towson, Md.

He was born in Thomasville, Ga., on October 6, 1931, and was the son of the late Cortez Alonzo Cooper Sr. and Billie D. Cooper. Surviving are his wife, Patricia Sartelle Cooper; sister, Ann Cooper Schaffer; children, Patty and Dick Cummings, Cortez and Caroline Cooper, Peter and Janet Cooper, and Preston and Katrina Cooper; 12 grandchildren; two great- grandchildren; sister-in-law and spouse, Susan and the Rev. Calvin Jett; and brothers-in-law and spouses, the Rev. Preston O. Sartelle Jr. and Mary Ellen Sartelle and the Rev. John and Janet Sartelle. (Jett and the Sartelle brothers are all PCA teaching Elders.)

Funeral Services will be held at 11 a.m. on Saturday, October 29, 2011, from the Draper’s Valley Presbyterian Church with the Rev. Preston O. Sartelle Jr., the Rev. John Sartelle and the Rev. Calvin Jett officiating.

Following the service there will be a reception in the church Fellowship Hall.

In lieu of flowers, the family wishes memorials be made to the Bethany Christian Services, 901 Eastern Ave., NE, P.O. Box 294, Grand Rapids, MI 49501-0294.

Arrangements by Stevens Funeral Home, Pulaski, Va., 540-980-2600.