New inductees for Winston-Salem’s arts, culture and entertainment Memorial Walk of Fame are being celebrated.
Under a light rain on Friday, the city revealed nine bronze stars on the sidewalk in front of the Benton Convention Center. Each one is named in tribute to transformative artists, educators and supporters whose contributions continue to be felt in the City of Arts and Innovation and beyond.
The 2025 inductees include arts advocate Bill Benton and pioneering public radio figure and former Wake Forest University professor Julian Burroughs.
Burroughs spearheaded the effort to secure WFDD’s broadcast license and North Carolina’s first NPR charter membership.
"He would be proud of the longevity and the professionalism that is here now," says Jean Burroughs. Her daughter Catherine agrees.
"He dreamed of this radio station being world-class, and he held onto that dream even though it was very hard," she says.
This year’s inductees include actor-educator Flonnie Anderson, bluesman Big Ron Hunter and Wake Forest University theatre educator Harold Tedford.
His daughter, Rosalind Tedford, is director of research, instruction, and outreach at ZSR Library on the Wake Forest campus.
"He loved this city, he loved Wake Forest, he loved the arts, and to have his work recognized in this way, I think he’d be, as he used to say, tickled pink," she says.
Former student Mary Dalton is a professor of communication at Wake.
"I was mesmerized in class," she says. "And it’s really the person he was that drew you in, his humanity, his expansive sort of embrace of life."
Since 2016, inductees into the Memorial Walk of Fame have been selected by a panel of citizens that make up the nominating committee. Their recommendations are forwarded to the mayor and City Council for ratification.
The new bronze stars can be seen embedded in the sidewalk on the east side of the Benton Convention Center, running parallel to Cherry Street in downtown Winston-Salem.