The Foreign Service Journal, September 2009

72 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 9 crossed the Congo River to visit Braz- zaville. Her foreign travels stopped then only because her son Barry re- tired from the Foreign Service. Mrs. Copenhaver was preceded in death by a son, Mickey Copenhaver, and, in 1988, by her husband of 53 years, Walter E. Copenhaver. She is survived by her son Barry, a retired FSO, and retired Foreign Service daughter-in-law, Judy, both of Cuero, Texas; her son Walter of Crockett, Texas; several grandchildren, including granddaughter Jill Copenhaver, with the State Department, and grand- son Scott of Washington, D.C.; and several great-grandchildren, nieces and nephews. Samuel A. Keller , 78, a retired FSO, died on Sept. 27, 2008, in Ar- lington, Va., of pneumonia. Born in Sioux Falls, S.D., Mr. Keller attended Iowa State College and then went to work at the Boeing Corp. He enlisted in the Navy during the Korean War and served on active duty until 1957. After graduating from Thunderbird Graduate School of Man- agement, he went into international banking in San Francisco and remained in the Naval Reserves, achieving the rank of lieutenant commander before joining the Foreign Service in 1972. During a 20-year diplomatic career, Mr. Keller served in Kinshasa, Madras, New Delhi and Washington, D.C., re- tiring in 1991. Mr. Keller’s wife, Flora Canales Keller, died in 2006. He is survived by his daughter, Beverly Kilmer; son-in- law, Jerome; and grandchildren Sam- uel, Elizabeth and Joseph, of Arling- ton, Va.; and a sister, Elisabeth Keller of San Francisco, Calif. Benjamin M. Lowe , 52, a former Foreign Service officer, died on May 12 in Atlanta, Ga. Born on Jan. 14, 1957, into an Army chaplain’s family at Fort Jack- son, S.C., Mr. Lowe graduated from Bordentown Military Institute College Prep School in Bordentown, N.J., in 1972. In 1977, he graduated with honors in both history and political sci- ence from Washington and Lee Uni- versity, where he was a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon and the campus Republican Party. After college, Mr. Lowe took a commission in the Army, serving as a Nike Hercules officer and an Air De- fense Artillery officer at Stuttgart and Rodenkirchen in Germany and at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. He continued in the Army Reserves for 16 years, serving in Texas and Japan (Camp Zama), at the U.S. Southern Com- mand in Panama and in the Washing- ton, D.C., area, including at Bowling Air Force Base, Fort Belvoir and the Defense Intelligence Agency, where he also served as a language instructor. He retired in 1988 as a major. Mr. Lowe joined the Foreign Serv- ice in 1982 as a consular officer. His first overseas posting was to Ciudad Juarez (1982-1984). He was then sent to Cape Town (1984-1986) where, in addition to serving as the consular of- ficer, he was a part-time political offi- cer and foreign aid officer, as well as a representative to the American Inter- national School Board. In Kuala Lum- pur (1986-1989) he was one of the last deputy assistant refugee program offi- cers for Vietnamese and Filipino refugees in northern Borneo. And in Santo Domingo (1993-1995) he serv- ed as the anti-fraud officer, with par- tial duty in Puerto Rico. Stateside tours included service as a human rights officer in the Bureau of African Affairs and as a deputy division chief of coordination, as well as a polit- ical analyst for El Salvador and Nicara- gua in the Visa Office. Because of the diversity of his ca- reer, he transferred from the consular cone to the multifunctionality cone, which came into existence in the 1980s. He assisted with many projects in the political, administration and economic sections at each posting. Everywhere he served, he was assigned to write bi- ographies for the State Department of the dignitaries he met during his post- ing. Mr. Lowe was fluent in German and Spanish, spoke and read Afrikaans and Bahasa Malaysia, and dabbled in Vietnamese. Upon leaving the Foreign Service in 1996, Mr. Lowe pursued a lifelong dream to get a law degree. He gradu- ated suma cum laude from the Florida Coastal School of Law, where he also edited the Law Review, in 2004 and became a member of the Florida State Bar in 2006. He spent time with the International Foundation for Election Systems in Monrovia, founding the Liberian Democracy Resource Cen- ter, and worked with various law firms in Jacksonville, Fla., Chicago, Ill., and Atlanta, Ga. Shortly before his death, Mr. Lowe opened his own firm, the Immigration Law Firm of Benjamin M. Lowe, serv- ing northeastern Florida and the great- er metropolitan area of Atlanta, Ga. In his free time, Mr. Lowe enjoyed American Motors antique cars, model railroading, collecting old coins and travel (he was also a pilot). He sang with several barbershop groups, in- cluding “The Big Orange” in Jack- sonville, Fla., and English-language choruses overseas. He was a member of the Church of Christ and the Asso- I N M E M O R Y