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Honoring devoted Deacons
Today, I’m celebrating the recognition of three Wake Foresters who have helped this University flourish for decades.
The Founders Day ceremony in Wait Chapel on Feb. 20 brought this excellent news: Don Flow (MBA ’83) of Winston-Salem received the Medallion of Merit, the University’s highest honor, and University trustees renamed South Residence Hall as Dr. Larry D. Hopkins and Professor Beth N. Hopkins Hall — Hopkins Hall, for short.
Flow is chairman and CEO of Flow Automotive Companies and has been recognized locally and statewide as an outstanding citizen in promoting economic and cultural gains. As a trustee, he has served his alma mater for years, chairing the record-breaking Wake Will campaign that led to renovated dorms and the construction of Farrell Hall. President Emeritus Nathan O. Hatch (L.H.D. ’21) calls him “a force at Wake Forest,” someone widely regarded as combining heart with intellect to get things done. Flow was an obvious choice for the Medallion of Merit.
Beth Norbrey Hopkins (’73, P ’12) and her husband, the late Dr. Larry Hopkins (’72, MD ’77, P ’12), both were Wake Forest professors and trailblazing students who became devoted alumni and trustees. Beth Hopkins, a Distinguished Alumni Award winner in 2023, taught in the law school and retired in 2016 as director of its Smith Anderson Center for Community Outreach. Larry Hopkins, a beloved physician known for improving prenatal care in Winston-Salem, was an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University’s medical school. He received the Distinguished Alumni Award in 1987 and the Medallion of Merit in 2020. He died in November 2020.
The college sweethearts faced racial barriers as undergraduates at Wake Forest, but they were not to be deterred. They worked to mentor students, to help all students feel like they belong and to make the University stronger.
How wonderful to know that these three alumni who have served their community and their University so well will be remembered forever in Wake Forest history for the love and generosity they have shown. Congratulations!
Sincerely,
Maria Henson (’82)
Associate Vice President and Editor-at-Large
magazine.wfu.edu
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