In her 44 years as staff in the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences (SPHSC), Opal Hicks was always “Mrs. Hicks” to her colleagues. As program assistant and graduate secretary for the department, she was caring but unassuming, helping guide graduate students through numerous bureaucratic challenges. She kept in touch with co-workers and former students after retiring in 1995, but no one anticipated her final gesture of generosity: through a bequest, Mrs. Hicks donated $468,000 to the department — one of the largest single gifts from a former College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) staff member to any CAS uni