Helping people is the ‘greatest feeling in the world’

Barbara Harter Rippy’s nephew once gave her a key ring that reads, “Help, I’m talking and I can’t shut up!” She laughs every time she remembers her husband jangling the keys as a not-so-subtle hint to wrap it up.

At 90 years young, Mrs. Rippy still talks a mile a minute and with so much animation it can be hard to keep up. She has a lifetime of stories to tell, and they often start with an enthusiastic, “Oh, honey, you’ll never believe this!”

Barbara Harter Rippy’s early years in upstate South Carolina

The second daughter of a homemaker and cotton mill worker, Barbara Eugenia Harter was born on Jan. 28, 1934. She grew up in Inman, just north of Spartanburg and a few miles south of the North Carolina-South Carolina border.

It’s a small town of less than two square miles, and Rippy recalls walking everywhere – even in the rain. “Daddy never did own a car,” she said. It only bothered her when she had to put cardboard in her shoes to cover holes worn into the soles.

When she was 18, Rippy met her future husband at the Inman Theatre, where she sold tickets, and he was the manager. Bobby Gene Rippy, a Navy veteran, was four years her senior. He didn’t talk much, but his dry wit won her over. “Oh, could he make you laugh,” she said.

After a three-year courtship, Barbara and Bobby Gene married in 1955. She continued her education at a technical school, which helped her get a job at a bank. Bobby Gene continued working for the theater.

For four years, they saved every penny with one goal in mind: sending Bobby Gene to pharmacy school.

Pursuing education and pharmacy dreams at MUSC

By 1959, the Rippys had saved $1,000 – equivalent to nearly $11,000 today. They packed their bags and moved three hours south to Charleston, where Bobby Gene enrolled in the College of Pharmacy at the Medical University of South Carolina.

In their apartment, the kitchen was so small “you couldn’t turn around without bumping into the stove or the refrigerator,” Mrs. Rippy said. Still, they found room to squeeze in a yellow kitchen table that doubled as Bobby Gene’s desk.

“He’d often wake me up and say, ‘Barbara, you’re going to have to ride with me to get some coffee,’” she said. “I would drink it with him, and then he’d stay up all night studying at that table.”

While Bobby Gene was in school, Mrs. Rippy worked to pay their bills. She had a full-time job at a bank and, for a while, worked weekends as a debt collector. Calling people who were struggling to pay their bills hit close to home. “Oh, that was heartbreaking,” she said.

The money she earned just covered their rent and groceries. A scholarship would have helped them stretch their dwindling savings, but Rippy said Bobby Gene wouldn’t apply because he didn’t want to take an opportunity away from a younger student.

“That’s just where his heart was,” she said.

It wasn’t until she convinced him that the money had gone unclaimed that he finally applied. He was awarded a scholarship in his final year – a gift they never forgot.

Building a community pharmacy rooted in compassion

The Rippys moved to Union, South Carolina, in 1969 to buy Smith Drug Store, a Main Street pharmacy they’d own and operate for the next 34 years. It quickly became a linchpin of the Union community. Mrs. Rippy was the face – and heart – of Smith Drug Store.

“Oh, I did a little of everything,” she said. She likes to joke that she was the head of public relations because she made it a point to greet every customer. “I was always taught that you should stop and say ‘hey’ or ‘good morning’ to someone,” she said. “You just never know what they’ve got on their minds.”

Like the young mother who asked if she could get her child’s medicine on store credit. “The fourth time she did that, Bobby Gene pulled me aside and said, ‘As long as I have any money, no child will go out that front door without their medicine,’” Rippy recalled.

People over profit became the Rippys’ motto. When they retired in 2004, Mrs. Rippy says they were still owed $75,000 in unpaid bills. “We got it down to $63,000 and wrote it off. We never missed a dime of it. Our customers were good to us, and we were good to them,” she said.

Transformational giving to the MUSC College of Pharmacy

In 2021, Mrs. Rippy felt called to give back to the college that had such an impact on their lives.

“After all the professors did for Bobby, I wanted to give the college $1 million so that generations of students would have the same opportunity to fulfill their dreams of becoming pharmacists,” she said.

In gratitude, the college named a lecture hall in its new building for the Rippys.

Mrs. Rippy generously gave to the college again in 2023, this time establishing a full-ride scholarship for a deserving student, preferably from Union. The endowed gift, totaling $750,000 in current and planned gifts, is the first of its kind at the college.

She believes Bobby Gene, who passed away in 2012, would be proud.

“I can’t believe the money we’ve made off of a little bit of savings,” she said. “God has been wonderful to us.”

Honoring a lifetime of philanthropy and service

Being able to help people is one of the greatest feelings in the world, Rippy says.

In addition to the college, she has supported eye research at the MUSC Health Storm Eye Institute. She also gives to Meals on Wheels, the South Carolina School for the Deaf and Blind and dozens of others. Recalling her own discomfort from covering holes in her shoes with cardboard, she also recently bought shoes for Union school children in need.

“It just tickles me to death that I can give,” she said.

Earlier this year, the state senate and the state house passed resolutions honoring Rippy on her 90th birthday. But that wasn’t all. On behalf of Governor Henry McMaster, she was awarded the Order of the Palmetto, South Carolina’s highest civilian honor. 

She wishes more people were willing to give to others, especially to students who may need help getting through school. “It will thrill you that you can give to people who need it,” she said. As for her, she doesn’t plan to slow down any time soon. “I’m going to ask God to let me live to 100, so I can give to more people,” she said.

Together with her husband, Barbara Harter Rippy has given to the college for 24 years! Her lifetime giving and recent gifts to the college make her a member of our Impact, Transformation and Legacy Circles.