An Early Riser With Big Ambitions

Meet New Devil Noah Bean from Henderson, N.C.

This is part of a series of stories about our newest Blue Devils.

Noah Bean is a rare teenager who doesn’t sleep in on Saturdays.

Just the opposite. The alarm blares at 2:30 am – yes, you read that right – and he’s up, chugging coffee and heading down the road to the Strong Arm Baking Company, the Oxford, N.C., bakery where he works part-time.

On these sleepy Saturday mornings, he pulls fresh sourdough from the oven and counts pastries to bring down to the Durham Farmer’s Market.

They usually sell out in four hours. A week later, Noah does it again.

For this incoming first-year Duke student, those early mornings are formative. Not just in a “discipline” kind of way but in an “out of his comfort zone” way as well. The experience was the inspiration for the personal statement he wrote for his college applications.

In it, he wrote about getting a little uncomfortable by meeting new and different people, which is what happens when you sell pastries next to an elderly woman selling exotic mushrooms and a guy dressed like a fox selling poetry.

Noah was valedictorian at Vance Charter School in Henderson, where he played soccer, led student government and involved himself in all manner of other activities. He is the recipient of a B.N. Duke Scholarship, which recognizes students who excel academically and are committed to civic engagement.

“Noah is incredibly driven,” said Amine Seifert, college and career coordinator at Vance Charter School. “His academic excellence and accomplishments as a leader are even more impressive when you realize he manages to balance those while working early morning shifts at a local bakery, engaging in multiple extracurricular activities, and spending time with friends and family.”

The second of three sons of a school teacher and a non-profit director, Noah heads to Duke to study public policy and political science, with an eye towards law school. He’s hoping his Duke experience mirrors his bakery experience writ much larger.

The bakery was a small business, which meant its employees needed to master many skills and work with plenty of people. He embraced that challenge in high school and plans to do the same at Duke – a melting pot he’s excited to join.

”I’ll learn a ton in the classroom but also outside the classroom just by interacting with people from different backgrounds.”
Noah Bean, first-year Duke student

“My high school is a K-12 school, with only 1,000 kids in all. I see the same people at school and church, the grocery store and when I go out to dinner with my family, because it’s a small area. So being able to expand my horizons in such a significant way is exciting,” he said. “Duke does a great job of building diverse classes, with international students and students from all over the country, and they seem to value people from all different backgrounds and lived experiences. I’ll learn a ton in the classroom but also outside the classroom just by interacting with people from different backgrounds.”

Noah Bean dressed in a suit standing at a podium in a government office. — Noah Bean while working as a N.C. government page. Photo courtesy Noah Bean.

Noah plans to study policy and politics, an interest he picked up as a middle schooler during the pandemic. Without much to do, Noah started closely following the political machinations of the pandemic. His was not a particularly political household, so he was free to form his own beliefs free from other influences. He’s looking forward to studying policy at a time when North Carolina will be particularly newsworthy and relevant on the national stage. A classic swing state during presidential elections, North Carolina will certainly be in the spotlight again in 2026 with a high-profile U.S. Senate race.

“There will be a lot of people looking at this state in the next few years, so being a student now is really a fantastic opportunity,” Bean said. “A lot of people like to talk about issues and policies, but Duke seems to be committed to actually getting involved in solving and addressing issues and allowing hands-on experience outside the classroom.”

Noah plans to be busy in college, which is why he told the good folks at the Strong Arm bakery that he won’t be working there anymore – other than maybe filling in during vacations.

But he won’t be a stranger. After all, the Durham Farmer’s Market – where the bakery sells its goods every Saturday – is just down the street from Duke.

“I’ll probably drop by,” he said. “After you do something every Saturday for two years, you’re bound to miss it.”