ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. — Rarely do a sitting president and first lady visit a city the size of Rocky Mount. 

Onlookers eagerly stood on street corners waiting for the arrival of President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden on Friday. It was a sight like no other for Marjorie Armstrong.

“I’m glad to be here to see something like this,” Armstrong said.

Armstrong is like so many in the small city split by Nash and Edgecombe counties seeing a presidential caravan for the first time.

“I’m 80 years old. I ain’t never seen anything like this,” she said. “Come to Rocky Mount? I couldn’t believe it. We don’t see stuff like this in Rocky Mount.”

Neither had Nash Community College president Lew Hunnicutt. He said he was full of childlike enthusiasm to host them.

“It is almost indescribable. I have spent my whole career talking. It is almost hard to comprehend that we have both the president and the first lady. The first time a sitting president and the first lady have come to a North Carolina community college in the history of histories,” Hunnicutt said.

But the first couple did just that. They each checked out the layout, coursework, machines and equipment that instructors use to mold the next generation of skilled workers at the Advanced Manufacturing Institute.

“I’ve been doing this for 30 years. This tops everything I have ever done,” Hunnicutt said.

The dean of career and technical education, Alex Barnhill, oversees a lot of the workforce training on campus.

“This is not just a book-teaching situation. This is an actual live in-person, hands-on type of situation,” Barnhill said.

Barnhill said to watch his students demonstrate what they learn to the Bidens was beyond amazing.

“The fact (that) we were chosen. There are 58 community colleges in North Carolina. Here we are in Nash County, and we got chosen. We are not considered a large college, but we are doing big things here,” Barnhill said.