Jack Bishop creates scholarship for Rocky Mount-area Eagle Scouts

Jack Bishop (right) meets with Jack Wilkerson, dean of the Calloway School.

Rocky Mount businessman John E. “Jack” Bishop has committed $100,000 through an estate gift to endow the Jack and Jean Bishop Scholarship at Wake Forest University. Bishop is a 1950 graduate of Wake Forest.

The scholarship will assist Rocky Mount-area students at Wake Forest with a scouting background who seek an undergraduate education at Wake Forest’s Wayne Calloway School of Business and Accountancy. First priority will be given to Eagle Scouts from Nash and Edgecombe counties. Eagle Scouts from the 20-county East Carolina Council of Boy Scouts of America will be given second preference.

In order to apply for the scholarship, eligible students already enrolled at Wake Forest must be accepted into the Calloway School.

Bishop, a successful businessman and Rocky Mount resident, said he developed his entrepreneurial spirit during his time at Wake Forest, but he credits his scout master, Vernon Sechriest, with instilling in him the important values to succeed at the university and as president of his own company, Bishop Enterprises.

“Scouting had a real impact on my development as a young man,” Bishop says. “I would like to provide opportunities for young men who share this background.”

Bishop and his family have had a nearly 75-year association with Wake Forest, stretching back to the 1930s. He and his two brothers attended Wake Forest, his wife, Jean, attended classes in the summer of 1948, and his granddaughter, Caroline (Carrie) Barbee graduated from the university in 1999.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration (BBA) in 1950, the first year the degree was offered at Wake Forest. Bishop, who earned an Eagle Scout badge in 1943, began scouting at the age of 12. He also won a Scout of the Year award.