VETERANS
ALMOST THERE
Despite numerous delays and the pandemic,
state veterans home to welcome residents soon
FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS
The Ardie R. Copas State Veterans’ Nursing Home is under construction. The middle building houses the dining room, chapel, beauty and barber shop and
more. Each of the wings contains three houses, consisting of 20 beds each.
BY SUSAN BURGESS
Treasure Coast veterans in need of skilled nursing
can soon move into a place not far from home where
their families and friends can easily visit. The new
Ardie R. Copas State Veterans’ Nursing Home in
Tradition will be only the seventh state home for veterans in
Florida. Widely dispersed, the nearest now are in Pembroke
Pines, 100 miles away, and Daytona Beach at 145 miles.
Ardie Ray Copas died a hero in Cambodia during the
Vietnam War at the age of 19, saving the lives of four soldiers
from enemy fire. His baby daughter, Shyrell Copas, then 5
months old, never got the chance to be held by her young
dad. But she is devoted to him, making sure the flame that is
his memory never goes out. And with the opening in Port St.
Lucie this summer or fall of a home named after her dad, it
never will.
The nursing home’s construction and decor, intended to
create a home-like feeling, will allow each veteran to share
a bedroom with another veteran, but each will have his or
her own living area. It includes six private rooms and six
bariatric rooms.
Copas, who would have been named after World War II
hero Audie Murphy had there not been a mistake on his
birth certificate, grew up and is buried in Fort Pierce. When
the state began looking for a site for a state nursing home for
veterans in 2014, St. Lucie County jumped at the opportunity,
said Wayne Teegardin, the county’s Veteran Services officer.
LOTS OF PAPERWORK
Months of intensive work led to a 600-page application —
and the state wanted 11 copies. It was so massive that Teegardin
drove it across the state to the state offices in Largo and
used a handcart to take it in. It paid off — in September 2014,
the governor and cabinet approved the nursing home to be
built on a 28-acre site in Tradition near the Cleveland Clinic >>
Port St. Lucie Magazine 17