In this episode of the Champions Coffee Podcast, Vygo Co-Founder & Co-CEO Ben Hallett sits down with Dr David R. Loope, the sixth President of Beaufort County Community College in Washington, North Carolina. Serving a four-county rural region spanning more than 2,000 square miles (and famously home to more black bears than people), Dr Loope leads with a clear mandate: student success, community engagement, and fiscal responsibility. A longtime national advocate for rural community colleges and author of Citadel and Sanctuary, he brings decades of leadership experience across policy and practice to the front lines of workforce and economic development.Ben and Dr Loope unpack what student-centred success looks like in a rural context from centralized advising that supports learners through the critical first 16–20 credits to a last-dollar scholarship model that covers tuition and fees for most credit students (9+ credits) and fully funds initial workforce certifications (50+ contact hours). The result: more credits taken, faster completion, and dramatically improved retention contributing to BCCC’s recognition as SmartAsset’s #1 community college in the nation for affordability, class size, and outcomes.Listeners will also hear a powerful student story that inspired BCCC’s plan to convert a nearby house into temporary housing for homeless students, Dr Loope’s view that grades should reflect learning not be the goal, and his call for faculty–student services alignment and thoughtful adoption of AI to build critical thinking and career readiness. It’s a candid look at how a rural college can change lives one learner, one partnership, one pragmatic innovation at a time.

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