Couple’s love pushes them to new heights

With a few days before Valentine’s Day, thoughts of love are in the air. For one couple in Robeson County, their love has produced 26 years of happiness, 4 degrees, 2 GED’s, 4 kids, and 3 grandkids, as they continue to push each other to new heights each and every day.

“And here we are,” laughed Percell Hunt.

“We are just two peas in a pod,” Jessie Hunt responded.

Jessie and Percell met each other in 1996 through a mutual friend when Jessie was 17 and Percell was 18.

“Percell happened to be there at that moment, and I guess it clicked, and we’ve been glued together ever since,” said Jessie.

A bond that is not easily broken, Jessie and Percell have worked hard to raise a family and provide a good life for themselves. Through good times and bad times, they’ve seen it through and never gave up on life.

Before meeting each other, the two had already dropped out of high school and were working full-time jobs.

“I just told my Dad one day, I don’t want to go back to school out there no more, and he said ‘son you’ve got two choices, you can either go to school or you can go to work.’ So that meant that I had an option, so I took option 2,” Percell said, as he reflected back on his past. “I quit school when I was 15, and the next day I was on the truck with my Dad doing construction work. That was the first day of my 10th-grade year.”

Percell had already been to working with his father on the weekends, on holidays, and during the summer breaks. As he says, “so it wasn’t like I didn’t know what I was doing on the job, it was easier because I knew what to expect, and to me when I went to school, I didn’t know what to expect. It was a terrible experience.”

“I didn’t ask for permission from anybody,” said Jessie. “I was putting in tobacco and going to school, so I just said that I was going to go to work and started doing it full-time. My father was a cucumber farmer, so I would have to pick cucumbers while I waited on the bus, eventually, he stopped doing cucumbers, and then he switched over to tobacco and I started putting in tobacco. That’s how I got money for my school clothes so, that I wouldn’t have to wear hand-me-downs.” 

“By the time we realized the importance of education, we were already grown. We struggled through times and having to raise a family, all we could do was think about work and paying bills,” said Jessie. “When you get older, it’s time to do better for yourself and make a change.”

Jessie did decide to make a change, one that started with completing her GED at Robeson Community College. Although she didn’t realize it at the time, it was a decision that would transform her life as she knew it.

“It all started because I was in competition with my children,” said Jessie. “I basically wanted to support them, but they got to the point where they disliked school, so I told them, I bet you that I can actually go back to school too and receive my GED and graduate before you. So, it was a competition at first.”

After passing all the tests needed to receive the GED, Jessie says the coordinators of the program coached her into coming to RCC to receive her associate’s degree in business administration.

“Our oldest son was getting ready to graduate high school and he wanted to go to a technical college, so I put forth the effort and said ‘ok’ and told him ‘I bet I’ll you beat you graduating from college,’ so that is when I actually came out to the college,” Jessie stated. “I loved the experience, it made me feel a little bit younger. Even though I knew some of the programs, I didn’t know the terminology so it helped me be more professional with the terminology that they used.”

Jessie ended up losing the bet though. Her son actually finished college before she did, but only by 4 months.

“He beat me to the punch,” Jessie said as she laughed.

During the course of all that, Percell was still working in construction. So, Jessie says she became a “nagging wife.”

“I told him basically that he had his hurts and backaches and I told him that when you reach a certain age, it’s time to give up on certain things, and change careers, where you don’t have to do that rough work.”

“I started having problems with my back, I couldn’t do the job that I enjoyed no more,” said Percell. “So, when it came time and I couldn’t do construction work no more, she was like ‘well why don’t you go back to school.’”

“It was a struggle for me because obviously I was 40 years old, and I did not want to go back to school, so she kept on and on and for about 6 months,” said Percell. “I was just sitting around the house thinking about it, and the whole time she did kind of nag me and I was like, well, ok, I said ‘if you’ll pay for me to just walk in and take the test, then I’ll go take the test,’ because I didn’t want to take any classes, and she actually paid for me to take the test.”

Percell says he studied for about a week or two, took the test, and received his GED.

“Then she said, ‘well whatcha gonna do now?’”

“So, I thought ‘I haven’t given it any thought, I got the GED, that’s what you wanted.’ And so, then she was like, ‘why don’t you go to school and get a degree,’ and I was like, ‘well then, that means I would have to go to school,” Percell said laughing. “She kept getting on me about getting a degree, so I said ‘if you’ll do the paperwork and get my financial aid, I’ll go back and give it a try.’ She did all my paperwork and I started at RCC in January 2018.”

Ironically, Percell says that he came to RCC to get one degree, but ended up with two.

“I came for the associate degree in support and services, but my last semester out here, my advisor told me ‘If you take just one more class, you can graduate with two degrees.’ And I didn’t want to take another class, to be honest about it, but I thought since I’ve got to come out here for the other classes anyway, why not, so he signed me up for one more class.”

In 2020, Percell graduated with a degree in support and services and a degree in network management.

Although it was hard going to school full-time and working, Jessie says it all eventually paid off.

“Our kids can see by our example and the changes that have happened since we went back to school. We both have better jobs and they’ve seen the progress that we’ve made,” said Jessie.

“One daughter is going to college to become a mid-wife, one is attending RCC in the culinary program, our son who got a certification in welding is working at Elkay, and our other son finished high school at the same time Percell graduated college and he is thinking about coming out to RCC, so they see the importance of education,” said Jessie.

Jessie herself has completed a bachelor’s degree in business administration management from the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, continuing to set the bar high and be a role model for those around here.

“If you want to do it, go ahead and do it, get that education under your belt then you can do great things,” stated Jessie.

“I have to admit it was one of the best decisions that I made to actually listen to my wife and come back to school,” said Percell. “Now that I’ve got my degree, I can see it was a benefit for me to come back and go through that process, it was beneficial to get my GED and it was beneficial to get my degree.” 

“There’s a lot of our friends and family and they are like, ‘I can’t believe you went back to school and you graduated with 2 degrees, and up until November of last year I had never had a driver’s license,” said Percell, showing just how transformational his life has been since receiving his GED. “The guys would pick me up for work, and Jessie would drive me wherever I needed to go, so I didn’t need one.”

Fast forward to today, and you’ll find Jessie and Percell both working at Robeson Community College full-time. Jessie works in the Financial Aid department as a financial aid specialist, and Percell works in the IT department as a PC Technician.

“It was a big leap for me because I’m used to factories and just working hard. He’s used to working outside in all kinds of weather in construction,” said Jessie.

Getting the jobs at RCC required a few new experiences for Percell and Jessie.

“I never had to interview for a job, it was the first interview I ever had in my life. I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t know how to feel. The only thing I knew was to do the best that I could do,” said Percell. “What made it so bad was I had been working with the IT department for 2 years as a work-study, so all these people that I was sitting there interviewing with, I had interactions with them before.”

Jessie chimed in and said, “Percell was a nervous wreck!”

“All my interviews, the guy was like can you run a drill and swing a hammer, I was like ‘yeah’ and he was like, ‘you got a job’… I hope it doesn’t happen, but if I ever have another interview, I kind of know what to expect.”

It was Jessie’s first interview too.

“Usually when you go out and get a blue-collar job, you go out there and it’s ok, when can you start. Nothing about your past experiences or where do you see yourself,” said Jessie. “When I got the news that I got an interview, I was ecstatic, I had been working out here for 6 years as a work-study and part-time, so to get the opportunity, I was just ecstatic.”

She continued by saying, “I just love working out here and encountering students… I hope to be here at RCC for a long time until I go into retirement, but I’m hoping to be able to grow old gracefully and just enjoy the rest of my years, to progress, and to be better than what we are now.

For Percell, becoming a PC Technician was the perfect job for him.

“I enjoy being able to go out and work with faculty and staff across campus. I like the fact that I’m not tied to my office where I have to sit here and I’m on the computer all day. I like being able to get up and go take care of a ticket, walk around campus and talk with people,” he said.

“I never, never, never ever thought I’d end up working at a college. I never thought it would happen, I just couldn’t see myself doing anything like that,” said Percell, who is planning on going back to school again to complete his bachelor’s degree. “Twenty years ago, if you had said anything about school, I would have probably walked off, that’s how bad of an experience I had, now for me to actually be working in education and at an educational institution, it is really good, I would encourage anybody to give it a try.”