Since 2008, Yvette Eastham has served as Hopkinsville Community College’s Chief Institutional Advancement Officer and Executive Director of the HCC Foundation, Inc. — responsible for the engagement, enrichment and enlistment of support from donors and the public alike.
Immaculate timing, it was, following the stock market crash and the important footsteps of local leader Jo Glover.
Thursday afternoon in the central atrium of the Emerging Technologies Building, she bid farewell into retirement — humbled by a strong gathering inside a structure that 16 years ago was a dream, and nothing more.
Eastham said she had been moved by community colleges and their mission as a young adult, when she struggled through her first year at Appalachian State in Boone, North Carolina following the death of her father.
A return back to Kentucky and familial roots led to her attending Somerset Community College, a chip on her shoulder the entire way.
Misconceptions she had quickly melted.
Life and family took her from Somerset to Louisville and Jefferson Community and Technical College, to Henderson Community College and then on to South Carolina, before the call from Hopkinsville came.
It’s students, she urged, that make a community college go.
And community college, she added, can be “the great leveler.”
Trigg County’s Dr. Scott Sutherland presented her with a handcrafted ink pen, and noted that it was her guidance and leadership that allowed both the Cadiz and Hopkinsville Rotary Clubs to trust the school’s stewardship of endowments and scholarship dollars — both of which have exponentially increased in the last 16 years. In 2024 alone, the two organizations raised nearly $1 million in successful auctions, and many of those funds will go toward HCC educations.
Glover’s husband, Eston, said Eastham led HCC “in the right direction,” helping bring the environment the campus has today.
HCC’s President & CEO Dr. Alissa Young also offered Eastham a watch as a gift, not because it’s a classic retirement present, but because she wanted to give her friend back some of the time she spent in the community.
Eastham told the News Edge she has two favorite memories from her time at HCC: the acquisition and preservation of the original blue Hopkinsville Community College sign from professor and historian William Turner, and the construction of the bell hooks Legacy statue, depicting a little girl learning in Christian County.
