Janey Thompson began her first year at Wake Forest in August of 2022 after graduating from Myers Park High School in Charlotte, N.C. She was a high-achiever in high school, so by the time her sophomore year at Wake was about to start she was prepared to maintain an impressively busy schedule. 

At the same time, Sadie Scott was gearing up to start her freshman year. Also a graduate of Myers Park, a high school of about 4000 students, she had never met Thompson before. And yet, on June 14 she received a message on Instagram. 

“‘Hey, Sadie, I’ll be a sophomore at Wake this year,” Thompson wrote to Scott. “I wanted to see if we could grab coffee or lunch at some point in the next two weeks.” 

Over coffee, Thompson listened to every worry Scott described and answered every question she asked. She advised Scott on registering for classes and talked about all the Wake Forest sports that both Charlotte natives had grown up watching. They talked about making friends in college and feeling homesick.

Afterwards, Scott told her high school friends that she had just met the older version of herself. 

“I felt like all my worries, [Thompson] had felt,” Scott, now a junior, said. “She was reassuring, said that she had the same worries and told me it all worked out,” Scott said. 

When the school year began, Thompson continued to make sure Scott felt comfortable. She walked Scott through her first semester schedule. They got a meal each week for almost two semesters. Thompson became the first person Scott thought to call when she needed someone to cry on the phone. Scott called Thompson her “voice of reason” in those moments. She had changed the trajectory of Scott’s college experience with that one Instagram message.

Thompson’s other commitments didn’t deter her from showing up for her new friend. In the process, she taught Scott the importance of supporting others — no matter how well you know them.

As Scott started her sophomore year, “I wanted to make sure I was Thompson to somebody else,” she said. “I wanted to make sure that the new incoming freshmen who were leaving home for the first time felt like they had somebody they could talk to. But I know I will never be exactly Thompson to somebody else because those are some huge shoes to fill.”

Thompson treated each friendship at Wake Forest with the intentionality she put into her relationship with Scott. In less than two years, she became an important figure to many people. That’s why when she died on April 9, 2024 after suffering complications from a blood clot, the loss impacted an entire campus.

As a Randall D. Ledford Physics scholar, Thompson studied biophysics and was on the dental track. She hosted a Wake Radio show on Fridays and was a member of the Delta Delta Delta sorority. Basketball was her favorite sport. At most men’s basketball games Thompson could be found in the front row because she had arrived at the arena three hours early, and a torn ACL failed to keep her away from playing for the club basketball team. 

Junior Sadie Gorley played on the team with Thompson, and she said they couldn’t keep her away from practice after the injury. 

Gorley and Thompson’s relationship strengthened when Gorley turned to her for support about balancing her work with planning practices and tournaments for the team. Soon, they were sitting on the floor of Thompson’s room as she drew plays on her phone. She turned on a basketball game for inspiration, translating what she saw on the screen to arrows and circles to be used in practice. Thompson used the plays to begin typing up detailed plans for the team’s next practice, and suddenly, Gorley had another coach to work with. 

“She was the best listener,” Gorley said. “Anytime that I wanted to say anything, she would sit there and nod along, telling me that she understood. She just knew. She read what people needed very well and very quickly, and could always be whatever you needed her to be in that space.”

Thompson and Gorley lived in the same suite within Davis Residence Hall during the fall semester of their sophomore year. After a difficult day, Gorley had shut herself in her room, looking to recuperate alone.

Outside Gorley’s door was a whiteboard. On it was a space for her to place a magnet on two sides indicating whether or not she was in the mood to have the conversation. She didn’t like talking to people when she was upset. That night, the magnet reflected that.

Gorley had been doing homework when eventually the knock she only knew to be Thompson’s came at her door. When Thompson entered, she brought with her a Crumbl cookie and a lemonade-flavored sparkling water, or “icy water” as Thompson called them. She didn’t say anything as she handed her friends the treats and only spoke on her way out.

“Love you,” Thompson said. “I’m in my room if you want to talk.” 

“I felt so much relief knowing that I didn’t have to talk through every single thing my brain was going through,” Gorley said. “I just got to know she was there for me.”

After Thompson left, Gorley shut her laptop and sat there for a moment. She recalled it as the first time that day that she could relax. She attributed it to knowing she had a friend down the hall who knew when to show support, but more importantly, how. 

Juniors Kyleigh Panther and Caroline Rice also recalled the attention Thompson gave her friends. Thompson always did the small things to let her friends know how much she cared about them. When Panther complimented one of her rings, Thompson bought her one to match. When Rice needed a ride to the airport, Thompson offered to take her in “Big Red” — the legendary 2007 Honda Pilot with a surplus of Taylor Swift CDs. Thompson also made herself available for the bigger moments, like after Rice had told her about a problem she had with a friend at home.

“People always say, ‘Tell your friends you love them,’” Panther said. “Janey was one of the ones who really would do that.”

Thompson was one of the most consistent friends Panther has known. Certain memories stick out to her, such as a certain accidental concert at Cugino Forno in downtown Winston-Salem. 

Freshman year, after watching Wake Forest football lose to Clemson in overtime, Thompson and her friends decided they needed a personal win. Thompson drove them to Cugino Forno, the first of many visits to the restaurant, where Thompson would become a superfan of the blueberry salad and chocolate cake. 

Out on the cement patio behind Cugino Forno that September evening, they found a crowd encircling a pop-up stage. Older audience members had brought a collection of lawn chairs to watch Alan Cooper, a country singer. Childrens danced right by his stage. Rice had thought it impossible for Thompson to cheer up as fast as she did after a disappointing football game. But the concert became her go-to inside joke for four semesters. 

“It’s crazy to think if Wake hadn’t lost that game, [Thompson] would not have sent us videos of Cooper Alan for a year and a half,” Panther said.

Alan had not actually become a favorite artist of Thompson. She just found the moment outrageous and had fun sending her friends updates about him. 

“She drove us home after, and Big Red didn’t have any aux,” Rice said. “So she just played Cooper Alan aloud on her phone for the entire drive.”

Panther laughed while recalling how Thompson could send her a Tiktok of Alan performing a rendition of “I’m Just Ken” at any point in the day. She also laughed talking about how Thompson would make DJ sounds for her during her Wake Radio slot, and how Thompson would spontaneously take a tiny harmonica from her Big Red keychain and begin playing it.

Actions that may have felt small to Thompson at the time made some of the most lasting impacts on Panther, who called them “the everyday things.”

Caroline Bates, a junior who lived with Thompson last year, keeps a list of those small things she misses sharing with Thompson. Thompson’s ability to multitask, something all of her friends were impressed by, topped that list. Thompson could watch a movie with her friends, do physics homework and paint a boygenius album for a friend all at once. Bates said Thompson could make every bond she had feel special, all while being the same intentional and caring friend to each person in her life. 

“When I’m having a rough day, she’s there dropping everything and talking to me,” Bates said. “But she’ll be having a full conversation with me while doing the most complicated physics homework I’ve ever seen. Even then, she was fully present at all times.”

For Valentine’s Day their sophomore year, Thompson put together a special night for their Davis suite. Thompson had been selected for a passing competition during the halftime of a men’s basketball game against Syracuse. Maddie Shannon, whose relationship with Thompson stemmed from their mutual desire to sit as close to the basket as possible, sat front row with her and recorded Thompson winning the competition. The torn ACL is easy to forget watching Thompson casually hit pass after pass through a goal. 

Afterward, Gorley received a selfie from Thompson, in which she held up a handful of Harris Teeter gift cards. Thompson announced their suite would be enjoying a “Galentine’s Day” feast together.

“We all walked in her room, and she had it all laid out in a charcuterie board style,” Gorley said. “It was insane — it took up most of the floor. She had all these different snacks and desserts and crackers and all these things that could probably feed an army, even though there’s five of us.”

The board came with peanut butter cups, cake squares, marshmallows and a fondue pot of melted chocolate. Thompson put out strawberries and chopped up bananas for them to dip into the chocolate. Gorley and Bates knew Thompson had wanted to organize a fun night, but neither had expected the amount of effort their friend had put into it.

From there, they spent over three hours playing through every option in the interactive romcom Choose Love. Thompson usually kept to a consistent bedtime of 10:30 p.m., but Bates remembered that night as one of the few times she didn’t catch her checking her phone around that time.

A few nights later, Gorley found the collection of Harris Teeter gift cards on Thompson’s desk. When she asked her why she still had them, Thompson revealed she had forgotten to bring them to the store. She had ended up paying for the food that night herself and planned on keeping it a secret because that’s not what mattered.

Gorley told the others anyway, wanting Thompson to receive the credit and money she deserved. She said she didn’t regret doing so, even if it had frustrated Thompson. Thompson still wouldn’t allow anyone to pay her back. 

 “She paid out of pocket, and she never let us pay her back for any of it,” Bates said. “Janey said that she just wanted a good, solid night with her girls, and that she wasn’t gonna let us pay her for that.”

After Thompson died, her friends knew they wanted to do something at a community-level to honor her. In just two weeks, Shannon, Panther and Rice spearheaded the organization of an event they hope will become a Wake Forest tradition — Jam for Janey, a basketball tournament that collects donations for a new physics scholarship in Thompson’s name. 

“A 3v3 basketball tournament seemed perfect, not only because of her passion for sports, but also because it would bring together people from all across campus,” Shannon said. “Janey had friends in so many different circles, and we wanted this event, and the scholarship in her name, to reflect her love for both community and physics.

This past spring, Jam for Janey featured 128 teams and 384 students who helped raise $30, 294 for the scholarship. The executive group chat for the event includes almost 20 people. Juniors Wilson Todd and Ethan Rosenberg both described helping organize the event as one of the most important things they have done at Wake Forest. 

“I want people, even if they didn’t know her, to know what she did,” Rosenberg said. “There’s so many people who we don’t know personally, but we should still celebrate and acknowledge, and Janey’s one of those people. Everyone should hold a part of her. She was good. She was the best.”

If the crowdfunding reaches $100,000, the Jam for Janey team may apply for the creation of the Janey Thompson Physics Scholarship. Shannon said creating another avenue for someone to study what Thompson loved is one way of building her friend’s legacy. For Gorley, the event meant giving back to the friend who changed her life on campus. 

“Janey changed my whole perspective on what Wake Forest could be as a school, and as a home,” Gorley said. “She made Wake Forest a home away from home, and made me fall in love with it, just by her being there.”