Dr. Robin Gary Cummings grew up on a 25-acre farm in Robeson County, a Tier I county in southeast North Carolina. As a boy, he rode past the university in Pembroke more times than he could count and wondered what went on in there. Now he runs it.
“If you look at investing in rural America, I believe it starts with education,” the UNC Pembroke chancellor told a full ballroom at the Omni Grove Park Inn in Asheville on Oct. 2. “I’m the product of education.”
The 2026 Investing in Rural America Conference, hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond (Richmond Fed) in partnership with the Federal Reserve System and Rural LISC, drew nearly 650 registered attendees from at least 47 states, plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and Guam…