This year’s recipient of the Thomas Aurelius Stallworth ’55 Award exemplifies what it means to be a good neighbor and friend. 

Robert S. Link Jr., a 1977 graduate of Presbyterian College, shares a lot of history with the late Rev. Dr. Stallworth himself. His father, the Rev. Bob Link Sr. ’56 was one of Stallworth’s classmates and a fellow Presbyterian minister. 

As a member of the PC Choir and the Madrigal Singers, Link shared a love of singing and performing. And, as an elder and clerk of the session for First Presbyterian Church of Clinton, they shared a love of PC’s mother church.

Link was an active and vibrant member of the PC community as a student. In addition to his musical prowess, the English major was managing editor of The Blue Stocking and vice president of the Student Government Association. 

He distinguished himself as an alumnus, as well – earning his juris doctor from Washington and Lee University School of Law in 1980 and going into banking soon after. Link served as a pension trust officer for Planters Bank and Trust Co. of Staunton, Va., as a senior pension trust officer at First Citizens Bank in Columbia, before returning to Clinton in 2003 as a senior trust officer for Carolina First/TD Bank.

Since 2015, Link has been the senior trust officer at TNB Financial Services in Clinton and is the administrator for the charitable Bailey Foundation. He also has served the City of Clinton as municipal judge from 2010-22 and currently chairs the city’s Board of Zoning Appeals.    

He continues to perform with the Sandlapper Singers in Columbia as well as the Laurens County Chorale, and has been a member of the Ovation Singers in Staunton.

Link has served his community as a member of the board of directors for the Rotary Club of Clinton, the Laurens County Chorale, the Laurens County Community Theater, the Laurens County Community Foundation, and the executive committee for the Blue Ridge Council of Boy Scouts of America.

He shares two sons, Craig and Sumter, with their mother, Katherine Carruth Goode ’79, as well as stepdaughters, Rachel and Mary Katherine ’21 with his wife, Amy Hadley (Kelly) Link ’89.