Bobby Denning runs his company without the use of his hands or legs. Last month, Bobby Denning Properties in Mount Olive opened its latest apartment building, Sue’s Bunkeroo.
The apartments are a novel idea, at least in the state. Similar to student apartments in Greenville for ECU students, these are fully furnished and designed for Lenoir Community College students.
The building on N. Herritage Street and Grainger Avenue features a common living area for social activities, including watching television on a large screen, cooking and eating. The building is secured from general public access.
There are bedrooms for one or two students, and renters share bathrooms, shower areas and laundry room. The rent includes all the utilities and maintenance.
“We furnish everything but the food,” Denning said. Students have convection and microwave ovens for preparing meals.
A search online reveals no other off-site type of housing designed specifically for community college students in North Carolina. Wikipedia lists one community college in Louisburg that offers a dormitory, and the website communitycolleges.studentads.com/dorms lists a few specialized two-year colleges with dorms.
Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, provides a list of 14 privately-owned apartments in the area with amenities and price comparisons, as well as a roommate matching service. The college accepts the applications. But these examples are not common.
Sue’s Bunkeroo, which Denning named after his wife, may be the only apartments of its kind. Sue Denning found the building in Kinston, and the couple intended to rent it out as office space.
Bobby Denning, who is a quadriplegic due to multiple sclerosis diagnosed when he was 6 years old, said his grandchildren began telling him there is a need for community college students to have housing.
“We got to looking into it,” he said, “and, sure enough, we were finding all kinds of needs.”
Shooting for the moon
Towards the end of June, the Dennings made the decision to convert the building into student apartments with the idea of having the building ready before Aug. 15, the first day of class.
“The architect drew up plans,” Denning said, “and the contractor said it was a six-month project. But in order to make it work, we had to have it ready by August 10.”
Denning said he and the general contractor, David Edwards, who is also the couple’s son-in-law, didn’t get much sleep during the renovation.
“We did a minimum three-month project in 42 days,” Edwards said, adding they used mostly local workers.
Edwards and the Dennings gave credit to the city of Kinston for being “professional and businesslike.”
“I didn’t get no special treatment,” Edwards said about city officials. “I just feel like they did business the way it should be done.”
Denning, 75, oversaw the project with minimal assistance from his wife of 42 years. He handles his wheelchair like a pro, using his mouth and buttons behind his head to operate it. It comes complete with a small computer screen on the chair’s arm.
“They told my mom and daddy,” he said of the doctors when he was 12, “I would never see my teens.”
Denning couldn’t go to school in the days before handicapped-accessible became a term. He was tutored using courses similar to what LCC teaches, he said.
He started out in the furniture business and later ventured into real estate. Not being able to do what most people take for granted, he focused on taking a piece of rundown property and making it into something valuable and “learning how to do things.”
“My granddaddy told me when I was a little boy,” Denning said, “to shoot for the moon, even if I hit my daddy’s barnyard door.”
He not only runs the large-scale operation in Mount Olive, but he has traveled all over the world.
Denning is now in stage three of four stages of MS, but his wife said she never treats her husband like a handicapped person. The couple has three daughters.
Moving in
On Aug. 7, the 6,000-square-foot apartment building received a certificate of occupancy, and students began moving in Aug. 10 with 75-percent of the rooms rented prior.
There are 21 rooms for 27 students — 15 single-occupancy and six doubles.
The students, the majority of which are freshmen, are all athletes. Three of the students are females who play volleyball.
Austin Carrington, 18, was one of the first residents.
“My baseball coach said they were doing this thing,” he said about the apartments, “and it would probably be the best thing because they have wi-fi and cable available in the rooms.”
The apartment’s resident advisor and student, Stephen Allard, said there is no curfew, but students sign a contract agreeing to no parties or alcohol.
“We do expect you to clean up for yourselves,” he said concerning the students.
Josh Boykin, 18, from Johnson County lives 10 minutes from a community college, but it doesn’t have a baseball team.
“We had trouble find a three-bedroom apartment,” he said, “and we didn’t like some areas and we couldn’t really find the trailer park.”
Student Alex Groff, who resides at Sue’s Bunkeroo, came all the way from Pennsylvania to play baseball at LCC. He said his coach had sent a player to Kinston and the student went on to be successful.
“My summer ball coach told me,” he said, “that it would be a better opportunity here to get better.”
Stoney Wine, the head of LCC’s athletic program and a baseball coach, said most of the athletes at the college come from out of the area.
“I guess the benefit is,” he said of student apartments, “I think there’s a need for it. … It’s very beneficial for us because of the limited housing in the area.”
Richy Huneycutt, LCC’s director of communications, also said there is a need for student housing, but the college doesn’t endorse any particular business.
“We have a lot of students that come to LCC,” she said, “not just athletes that come from outside the driving area — students that come for unique programs.”
Some of those hard-to-find programs include gunsmithing, aviation management and pilot technology.
Denning is looking at the possibility of building another apartment like Sue’s Bunkeroo.
“I’m trying to make sure the demand is here,” he said. “And if there is, I’ll do another.”
Margaret Fisher can be reached at 252-559-1082 or Margaret.Fisher@Kinston.com. Follow her on Twitter @MargaretFishr.
For information about Sue's Bunkeroo, call 919-658-8048.