Andrew Ryan Cooper

Middletown.....Andrew (Andy) Ryan Cooper, 30, of San Jose, California, unexpectedly passed away Thursday, November 21, 2013. He was born December 17, 1982, in Charleston, Illinois, and was the son of Drew and Sue (Snyder) Cooper. He married Amber Powers on May 31, 2004, in Middletown, Indiana. Andy was the second of eight children and the eldest son of Drew and Sue Cooper. He grew up in Middletown where he had many adventures as a boy. He enjoyed using the Middletown parks almost daily. He played little league baseball, managed an extensive paper route for the Indianapolis Star/News, operated the canned pop machine in front of the NAPA auto parts store, pumped gas for Norm Day at Day's Marathon, and was made famous as the blonde haired boy who discovered a 50-year-old skeleton in the walls of the 1898 Masonic Temple building where his family lived. Andy was homeschooled through high school where he excelled at mathematics, classical literature, and engineering. For fun, he and his brother Joey published a successful computer magazine known as The Mac Users Militia Newsletter. Andy left home for Los Angeles, California at the age of 17 to pioneer a very successful dot-com business known as Two-For-One-Ink-Jet. He returned to Indiana a year later to enroll at Rose-Hulman University (where he had previously attended a summer program for gifted high school students) and earned a BachelorA*s degree in Software Engineering. Andy had the same three roommates for all four years at Rose-Hulman. Each of these four young men stayed friends after graduation and has been a groomsman at each others weddings. Before graduation, Andy married his hometown sweetheart Amber Powers. The couples family grew quickly as they had three beautiful babies, Jonah, Lucy, and Gabe. Andy's career as a software engineer took him to Minneapolis, Minnesota where he worked for Guidant. He moved his family briefly back to Indiana where he worked for a software start-up business in West Lafayette and then Technicolor, Inc. in Carmel. He used these stepping stones to land a prime job with silicon valley giant Amazon.com and moved his family to San Jose, California in 2012. Andy will always be remembered by his family as a fun loving, curious, and adventurous boy. He loved to build things, and excelled at puzzles, games, drawing, and riding the unicycle. He actually taught himself how to juggle from a book when he was ten. When anyone was in trouble, Andy was the first one to lend a hand. He was honest, hardworking, and a true friend to those who knew him best. Survivors include his wife, Amber of San Jose, CA; three children, Jonah, Lucy, and Gabriel of San Jose, CA; parents, Drew Cooper (wife, Sue) of Middletown; brothers and sisters, Bobbe (Justin) Mann of Jessup, MD, Joey (Carrie) Cooper of Middletown, Kate (Kenny) Thomas of Lakenheath Air Force Base, England, Michael (Leah) Cooper of Middletown, Hannah (Schaad) Thomas of Muncie, and William and Valerie of Middletown; eight nieces and nephews; many cousins, aunts and uncles; and grandparents, June Cooper of Charleston, IL and Jackie (Nick) Schouten of Bedford, TX. He was preceded in death by grandfathers, George Cooper and Robert Snyder. Services honoring and celebrating AndyA*s life will be held Saturday, November 30, at 3 p.m. with visiting at 2 p.m. at the Middletown Nazarene Church Sanctuary, 698 N. 5th Street in Middletown. It is requested that memorial gifts in his honor be made to the Middletown/Fall Creek Township Parks Department. Ballard & Sons Funeral Home, of Middletown, handled the arrangements.