Hop(e)

Before Hop CPG, Hop(e) was a person.

Brenda Lee Molnaird Hopkins was Josh’s mother — driven, compassionate, and fair, in that order. She loved her sons above everything else. She was also an accomplished professional in her own right.

She earned her accounting degree in three years at Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia, then moved to Northwest Arkansas. She became a CPA across private and public roles, and late in her life returned to the craft — still showing up.

Born in El Dorado. Made her life in Rogers. In April 1998 she learned she was ill, while she was still in good health. Chemotherapy came next. What Josh remembers is not only the treatment. It is what she did with the room.

“As she began chemo she took it on herself to start reaching out to the other patients and making friends. Before it had a chance to wear her down she became an advocate for those that were already worn down.”

Nurses were glad to see her walk in. They knew other patients would leave happier. While battling Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, she served on the board of HOPE — Helping Oncology Patients Excel — a Northwest Arkansas nonprofit for people who needed more than a waiting room. On January 29, 2004, she passed in Dallas during a stem cell transplant at Baylor Medical Center.

Josh does not claim a perfect memory of every board meeting. What did not pass is the shape of her: the fairness, the drive, the instinct to lift the people already tired.