This is a blog, celebrating my wonderful father, Henry Evans Hooper on Father's Day in 2024.

My Dad started as a teacher and then worked with a private financial investment firm and then became a teacher again. He teaches his high school and college students a wide range of subjects including personal finance and accounting, English, leadership, business, creative writing, and advanced finance.

One day, in 2021, I said to my Dad, "I wish I had someone to teach me personal finances in high school. Can we meet once a week and you share what you know? We can call it Friday Finance." At first, it was just the two of us. Then I thought it would be good for my sisters Kathleen and Margaret to join as well. This time together is precious for us as a family; hearing Dad's wisdom and soaking in his teachings, asking him questions and applying this knowledge to our lives. I cherish each and every call. Dad always calls two minutes early—that’s his style. 

During "Friday Finance," we discuss the traditional finance market, our stock portfolios, world events, personal finances, and strategies for how to save, invest, and share our money. He is the most generous person I know with his time and money, and I feel honored to learn from him.

So who is Henry? Well, for starters, he is a renaissance man, always dresses formally; I think it’s the East Coast in him. He is a writer and has written hundreds of blogs, or as he calls them, "witness posts," about everything you could imagine. He loves writing about birds, places, people, history, and adventures. He uses SAT words in everyday language and he is a life-long learner! He is one of the most curious and fascinated people I have ever met.

Dad is also a wrestling and lacrosse coach, a star athlete. His motto was for us girls growing up, "If you can walk, you can run," so at 1.5 years old, each of us was running "Circle Road" with Dad! We hated it but it was good for us, I think. He would always stop us on the runs and point out the names of the birds, flowers, and trees, then quiz us a few minutes later to make sure we were listening.

His leadership as a father, brother, friend, and teacher is extremely special. He invests in the people around him with quality time, sharing his finances, offering a listening ear, sharing relevant (and sometimes irrelevant stories), offering advice when asked, and sincere affection. In this way, he is always giving back. He is positive, full of faith in God, and prays each morning and night.

Henry makes "father" a verb. He didn’t punish us with force but empowered us to make good decisions by making healthy decisions himself and holding boundaries with our privileges when we crossed the line as teens. He loved having three daughters. "Real athletes have daughters," he always said. He simply wanted us to be strong, loving, independent people.

Dad always believed in me, his middle one. He calls me his sweetheart!

Like me, he had a learning disability and struggled in school. After work for him and school for me, we would drill math facts, read together and spend time weeding in the garden.

He said on a family call for Fathers day this year, "A good father cares for himself and the women in the family. We need to be vigilant about lifting women up. If we look to birds as an example, male birds are the most colorful and flamboyant to attract a healthy mate. Males are there to protect their children. That was what I do for our family." 

My Dad found his ideal mate, my mother Tracy and my parents were always in sync, working together and deciding together how raise us kids as a team. They lift each other up in front of us girls and everyone. My parents have been happily married for 40 years, and their love keeps getting better. Their marriage shows the world what true love looks like and to be raised with that is a unique, powerful gift they offer. I feel incredibly blessed and I believe I hold a responsibility to love my family and husband in a powerful way too!

As kids, if we fell and skinned our knee, he would pick us up, kiss our forehead, and say, "You can do it, let’s keep going." He didn’t want wimps in his house, and we weren’t. We got outside and went on hikes. We didn’t like it as little kids but then loved it, and now I take people outside for my work—it’s the best job I could imagine.

Dad shows us unconditional love; he is abundant love. He is a good parent all the time. He said, "Being a good parent means being a good parent, not just when it’s convenient. This is a life-long journey."

My father stands as a role model for so many beyond just us, his daughters. Henry Evans Hooper is certainly a legendary father and teacher.

​​​Thank you, Dad, for all the love and for being such a gift to our world.