Kathryn Elizabeth Hatcher, Christopher Nelson Hewitt and Melissa Paige Sova of Fuquay-Varina were among the 183 graduates the school conferred hoods on Sunday, May 19, in Wait Chapel.

Hewitt graduated cum laude and Hatcher was honored with appointment to the Order of Barristers, a national honor society recognizing excellence in student trial and appellate advocacy. Each year a faculty committee selects third-year students who have made outstanding contributions to advocacy. She received the N.C. Advocates for Justice Award, which is an award that recognizes the “most outstanding advocate” in each section of Trial Practice. Hatcher also was given the Forsyth County Women Attorney’s Association Book Award, which is presented annually to an outstanding female graduate.

The law school’s 39th annual hooding speaker, Thomas L. Sager (’76), Dupont Legal vice president and general counsel, told the graduates and their families that it was because of Wake Forest Law that he has realized the success he has experienced.

“It prepared me so well,” he said. “You have matriculated from one of the finest law schools in the nation and you will soon realize how well it has prepared you.”

Sager added that many of the graduates will embark on a career in the legal profession, which remains a noble profession for many.

“As lawyers, if we do not take care of the how, the what doesn’t matter,” he said. “I know you can make a buck, but can you make a difference? Please keep in mind it’s not the position or the money, it’s whether you made a difference.

“I know every one of you will make a difference in the years to come.”

Executive Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Suzanne Reynolds congratulated the Class of 2013, which received a standing ovation from family and friends in the audience.

Dean Blake Morant described this graduating class as being made up of a group of individuals who are going to contribute to society in a great way.

“I make these comments with mixed emotions because I have bonded with you over the past three years I have seen you grow not only in terms of your intellectual abilities but as individuals who dedicated well over five figures of hours of pro bono legal work,” he said. “I know you will continue to thrive and I know you will do not only for yourselves, but for others.”

Morant added the graduates’ degrees are an investment for a lifetime and that 73 percent of the class donated to Class of 2013 third-year law student campaign.

“I thank you and applaud you for all you have done and for all the great things you are going to do.”

A diploma ceremony was held in Wait Chapel on Monday, May 20, following Commencement exercises on Hearn Plaza.

The Wake Forest University School of Law offers six degree programs: the JD, the JD/MDiv, the JD/MA in Religion, the JD/MA in Bioethics, the Master of Laws in American Law and the JD/MBA in conjunction with the university’s Schools of Business.

Asia Li'Nay Griffey

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Asia Li’Nay Griffey, a member of the Fuquay-Varina High School Class of 2013, joined the FVHS Family History-Genealogy Club in the fall of 2011.

Her maternal family is from Lowndes County, Ala. She traced her lines back through the Civil Rights Movement, both World Wars and the Great Depression to the days of slavery. She has connected two of her lines to their origins in Africa.

One of Griffey’s cousins, Susie Mushatt Jones, currently is the oldest living American in the state of New York at the age of 113.

While researching in the State Library and Archives in December 2011, Griffey discovered that her great-grandfather, Fletcher Boyd Sanders, Sr., had been wounded in action during World War II. He served at a time when African-Americans and Filipinos were limited to serving as stewards aboard ships. There was no record that he ever received a Purple Heart, any campaign medals or the World War II Victory Medal.

Later research showed that in May 1944, Fletcher Sanders was assigned as a Steward’s Mate aboard the USS Terror, a minelayer stationed in the Pacific Theater. He was promoted to the rank of Steward’s Mate First Class on Oct. 1, 1944.

Minutes before 4 a.m. on May 1, 1945, as the USS Terror lay at anchor in Kerama Retto, a kamikaze plane dove toward the ship. It came in so rapidly that only one of the minelayer’s stern guns opened fire. As the plane crashed into the ship’s communication platform, one of its bombs exploded. The other penetrated the main deck before it, too, exploded.

The aircraft’s engine tore through the ship’s bulkheads to land in the wardroom. Fire flared immediately in the superstructure but was soon controlled and, within two hours, was extinguished. Flooding of the magazines prevented possible explosions, and no engineering damage occurred, but the kamikaze had exacted its toll. The attack cost the USS Terror 171 casualties: 41 dead, seven missing and 123 wounded.

Griffey’s great-grandfather was one of those wounded. He was next listed as a patient aboard the hospital ship, USS Samaritan, on May 8, and then transferred to the navy hospital on Saipan in the Marianas Islands. He remained in the hospital until July and was eventually returned to his ship. He left the Navy in October 1945.

This past April, Griffey wrote to President Obama to request help in obtaining her great-grandfather’s medals from World War II. She was contacted by the Military Personnel Records Center of the National Archives on May 16 and was told that the Navy Department would issue her great-grandfather’s medals to her and her mom, posthumously.

Griffey is the daughter of Falicia Sanders of Willow Spring. She plans to attend N.C. State University to study chemistry.