Linwood Beckner is one of the Rotary Club of Norfolk’s friendliest members and is usually on hand to welcome visitors and members alike to club meetings. As the current chair of our club’s social committee Linwood heads a team of enthusiastic party planners. He previously helped lead our club’s Dancing Through the Decades gala during our centennial year. Linwood joined our club in 1986 and served as president a decade later. His favorite part of Rotary is its fellowship.

Linwood has lived in Norfolk his entire life – most of it on West Princess Anne Road in West Ghent where he grew up and then moved down the street as a newlywed. Last year after 44 years on the same street, Linwood and his wife Frances got a new perspective on life by moving to Norfolk’s historic Freemason neighborhood. The Princess Anne name remains front and center through Frances Beckner’s antique business called Princess Anne Estates. The Beckners have two children, Sarah Weinberg, and Lyle Beckner, who both are married and live and work in Norfolk. They also are grandparents to a six-month-old granddaughter Reilly Weinberg.

Linwood is a retired customs broker who was an owner of Hipage Company, which helped ship Anheuser-Busch and Phillip Morris products overseas and bring furniture and rugs for Norfolk’s Decorum and Farmville’s Green Front Furniture stores. He and his partners sold Hipage in 2011 to a Canadian company. Google Linwood’s name and the first thing to pop up mentions how in 2012 he was selected for the grand jury investigating Norfolk’s infamous “no-show” Community Services Board worker. He also has been involved in various community organizations and served as president of The Maury Foundation, which supports his alma mater Maury High School.

In addition to Rotary Linwood enjoys traveling, spending time with his granddaughter and visiting over lunch with members of The Virginia Club.