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Beach ceremony remembers Laguna’s Bruce Hopping

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A crowd of family members, friends and others turned out in Laguna Beach on Thursday to honor the late Bruce Hopping — a local arts and youth sports patron, International Swimming Hall of Fame inductee and veteran of two wars — with a memorial ceremony and paddle-out at Thalia Street Beach.

Hopping died May 17 at age 96. He had lived in Laguna nearly 60 years.

He served with the Army in World War II and the Korean War before founding the New Jersey Foundation in 1953, sponsoring aquatic athletic events and commissioning multiple works of art. He renamed it the Kalos Kagathos Foundation in 1968 after UC Irvine classics professor and Laguna resident Ted Brunner introduced him to the ancient Greek educational concept of kalos kagathos, which emphasizes physical distinction and nobility of mind.

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