Board Chair Betsy Hoppe '74
Leading by Example

Chatting with Board Chair Betsy Sutton Hoppe '74 is like sitting back and catching up on the latest news with a good friend. She is a genuine, down-to-earth woman whose personality combines grace and ease with a wonderfully wicked sense of humor. She exhibits humility of spirit and strength of conviction and you somehow know if you ever found yourself in a real pickle, Betsy would be exactly the type of person you would ask for help. She would not only help sort things out, but would make sure you had a fine time in the process.

Betsy's Summit roots go deep. Born in North Wilkesboro, Betsy and her brother, Jack '71, enrolled in the school when Betsy's family moved to Winston-Salem.   Younger brother, Jim '81, joined them later.   Mom, Betty, had been a teacher at Whitaker and Wiley schools before she came to Summit in 1964. As a young, single woman, she had roomed with friend Loma Hopkins, who came to teach music at Summit in 1960. In SrK, Betsy became best friends with Loma's daughter, Mary Hopkins Vance '74, further cementing a friendship between the two families that has only strengthened with time.

Betty arrived at Summit back in the day when staff traded work for free tuition for their children. "My parents were very clear about what they valued--church, education, a work ethic, and family dinners. I believe one of the reasons my mother made such a commitment to Summit School was because it gave so much to my brothers and me."

Many of Betsy's most memorable Summit moments have to do with the swirl of sometimes outrageous behavior that surrounded what she diplomatically refers to as "one of the liveliest classes to ever grace the doors of Summit School." She says to ask Sandra Adams, who no doubt will concur.

"I thought that everything Rusty Doggett, William Graham and Frank Cordell did was great," she says. Betsy lived vicariously through many of the "wild ones" because she was raised in a household where all the Sutton children were expected to work hard, study hard, and behave. Then there was the fact that mom, Betty, was at school everyday to see that they were measuring up. Betsy also has wonderful memories of Rachel Malcolm and Jerry Johnson, two of her favorite teachers, and Lucille Shore, wife of Sheriff Ernie Shore, for whom the city's baseball field is named. When Betsy found out that Ernie Shore had once roomed with Babe Ruth when they played professional baseball together, it lit a fire in her. She became an avid reader and consumed everything she could find on Babe Ruth.

She says her love of creative writing and poetry was fostered at Summit, especially under her ninth grade English teacher, Val Forcier. In one writing assignment, he gave the students a picture of a chair and asked them to write an essay. Betsy, who with many of her seventh grade classmates regularly volunteered at Knollwood Hall, then the county home for the elderly, centered her story on a man who was always sitting in the same chair when she went for her visits. The results impressed not only Mr. Forcier, but also the admissions committees at Duke and Dartmouth, who read the essay years later when she applied to college.

Betsy's older brother, Jack, went to The Hotchkiss School after Summit and Betsy missed her own graduation in 1974 to attend his. Her Summit years were over but she didn't want to leave. "They carried me kicking and screaming away from here," laughs Betsy, who somehow managed to survive at Salem Academy with the support of good friend Mary Hopkins '74. She went on to Duke, as did both of her brothers, where she double majored in English and history. During college, Betsy took a job with student labor services where she worked alongside the custodians--changing light bulbs, working security on a construction site, and generally doing whatever needed to be done. Although her parents did not ask her to work, there was an understanding that she and her brothers were to spend free time in some kind of meaningful way. Since the age of 13, Betsy had been working weekends and summers for Coach Jim Leighton in the tennis shop at Old Town Club, and she continued to work there until she graduated from Duke and took her first real job at Neiman-Marcus in Dallas, where she became the assistant crystal buyer.

The Texas connection was made when Betsy met fellow Duke student, Mark Hoppe. What co-ed wouldn't be intrigued by a guy who had arrived at Duke, sight unseen, all the way from Abilene, Texas?   His only company on the road was his eight-track tape collection of country artists like Charlie Pride and Hank Williams. As Betsy tells it, Mark arrived in Durham where he stopped at a service station to ask directions to the campus. The attendant took one look at Mark's cowboy boots and license plate, sized him up, and told him he had no idea where it was. Crestfallen, Mark got back in his car thinking that Duke was in South Carolina not North Carolina.

After graduating from Duke, Mark enrolled in law school at SMU. Betsy joined him a year later, when she graduated, and the couple married in 1983. Mark's first law job was in Midland, Texas, where Betsy passed her Series 7 and went to work for Charles Schwab. "Midland was too hot for tennis and golf," says Betsy. So, she joined in an activity popular among West Texas women--trap shooting. Will Rogers, at his peak as a cowboy humorist, would pale in comparison to Betsy regaling the listener about the ins and outs and do's and don'ts of ladies' trap shooting in Texas. Let it suffice to say that Betsy and her team of young women may not have been the most accurate marksmen in town, but they took great pride in being "the team with the smallest hair that didn't dip snuff."

What Betsy did grow to love was hunting--turkey, quail, deer, and dove--with Mark on his family's West Texas ranch.   After two years in Midland, the Hoppes moved to Fort Worth where children, Will and Blitz, were born. Betsy enrolled in MBA School at Texas Christian University and, after graduation, taught information systems in the University's undergraduate business school.

The family returned to Winston-Salem in 1993 when Mark joined her father's business. The children were enrolled at Summit, where grandmother, Betty, still brings her wealth of knowledge to every job she undertakes, and Betsy went to work as an information systems instructor in the Calloway School of Business and Accountancy at Wake Forest. Within a few years, Mark decided to return to practicing law and Betsy was promoted to assistant dean for Student Academic Affairs in the business   school. She has since received her PhD in Higher Education Administration. Betsy loves her job. She finds the campus an exciting place to be and enjoys interacting closely with the students.

"In my job, I am presented with opportunities on a daily basis to help students with academic and personal issues. Many just want help finding their way.   It gives me great pleasure to be able, in some small measure, to 'pay forward' the kindnesses that have been shown to me throughout the years.   From my parents, to my teachers at Summit School and beyond, and to the many others who have mentored me in all areas of my life, I feel a great obligation to repay those individuals who have enabled me to be where I am today."

She has continued to be an avid volunteer and has instilled the same qualities in her children. During the two years that Betsy's grandmother was living at Salemtowne, the Moravian retirement home, she, Will '04, now a rising junior at Woodberry   Forest School, and Blitz, a rising Summit 8th grader, visited her every day. Since her death in 1995, they have continued to visit the residents of Salemtowne each Sunday. Betsy serves on numerous volunteer and work-related committees in the community and at Wake Forest, but has always wanted to impress upon her children that one can always volunteer without being affiliated with a specific organization.  

When asked to become chair of the Summit Board of Trustees, Betsy never hesitated. "I have a sincere desire to do this for Summit School. It has such a vision of how to prepare students for years down the road," she says. "I don't have a great business mind, but this is a very intelligent Board made up of members who care a great deal about Summit. There are a lot of diverse opinions and freely-shared ideas that help us arrive at better decisions.   I feel my particular contribution is the insight I have into the educational environment for which we are preparing these students."   Those qualities will be especially important this year as the Board works hard to develop a strategic plan that will ensure Summit's success in the next five years, and for years to come.

When asked what she would say to parents who are considering Summit for their child, Betsy says, "It is the best investment you will ever make and the best academic experience in the area, if not the state. When we write our tuition check each semester, Mark and I are so thankful that our children have the opportunity to experience Summit. It is one of the greatest gifts we can give them."