When Wallace Malcolm “Mal” Jopling ’70 proposed a trip to hike the West Highland Way in Scotland to his daughter, Amanda Jopling Wells ’99, she jumped at the opportunity.
“He bought Wofford sweatshirts for us to wear at the beginning of the trail head and at the end of our 96-mile hike,” says Wells, who along with Jopling poses in Fort William with the weary but triumphant bronze hiker at the end of their eight-day hike. “It was a trip of a lifetime.”
Jopling worked in banking for more than 20 years before earning a master of divinity degree at the University of the South. He became an Episcopal priest in the diocese of North Florida, retiring last fall. He now volunteers as a guardian ad litem and continues to walk, hike or bicycle. Jopling lives in St. Augustine, Fla., with his wife, Marsha, and their two Labradors, Santa Fe and Suwanee.
Wells holds a master of education in human development from the University of Maryland University College. She’s a STEM teacher at Waynesville Middle School and lives in Clyde, N.C., with her husband, Matthew Wells ’99, and their three children, Hannah, Christopher and Julia. She’s passed a love of hiking to her children. She and her family did a highest peaks tour this summer, hiking six of the highest peaks east of the Mississippi.
by Jo Ann Mitchell Brasington ’89