Issue link: http://maconmagazine.uberflip.com/i/1544361
84 maconmagazine.com | April/May 2026 INTERVIEW BY JULIA MORRISON | PHOTO BY DSTO MOORE Macon Chose Me is a photo series by DSTO Moore highlighting residents who weren't born in Macon but actively chose to move here and enjoy positively representing the community. Emily Hopkins M A C O N C H O S E M E E mily Hopkins is a familiar face to Macon, but a fresh voice at the head of Historic Macon Foundation, taking the reins as executive director in February. This is a full circle moment for Hopkins, since HMF brought her here. The South Carolina native and 5 Under 40 Young Leader studied cities closely in her previous roles at NewTown Macon and as the Main Street program manager, and Hopkins led the charge to get Macon named a Great American Main Street in 2024. Read how the late Josh Rogers inspired her path, her love of downtown's renaissance, the neighborhoods that make us great, and where she'll take HMF next. At this moment in your career, your "Macon Chose Me" story is particularly poignant. Tell us about what brought you to Macon. I fi rst learned about Macon and the work being done here when I was in graduate school at the Cooperstown Graduate Program in Upstate New York. The director of my program, Gretchen Sorin, served on the board of the 1772 Foundation and had visited Macon to see work the foundation funded in the Beall's Hill neighborhood. She was so impressed she asked Josh Rogers, who was the executive director of Historic Macon at the time, to speak to my program for an eight (!) hour lecture. Josh shared about how preservation could be a tool for economic development and transform neighborhoods. Being the only Southerner in my class, I never forgot Josh's lesson of what equitable development could look like Emily stands at the construction site of the former Korner Kupboard building in Beall's Hill, built in 1888. Vacant for two decades, HMF is converting it into two new housing units.