What year did you graduate:  2003.

Give us the highlight reel! What has changed since you transitioned from PCS student to PCS Alum?   

Since it’s been almost 20 years, I really will stick to the highlights.  After graduating from PCS, I went to Mississippi State University and got a degree in Aerospace Engineering.  I joined ROTC my second semester of freshman year and earned my commission as a Second Lieutenant in the Air Force with a pilot slot.  I also met and married my wife, Whitney, while at Mississippi State.  Over the past 15 years, we have lived in Panama City and Pensacola, FL, Enid, OK, San Antonio, TX (twice), Witchita Falls, TX, Fort Worth, TX, Kunsan Air Base, South Korea, and we are currently stationed at Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo, NM.   We are moving back to Mississippi next month where I will be stationed at Columbus AFB and instruct newly minted pilots in a program called Introduction to Fighter Fundamentals.  Think Fighter Pilot 101.  Along the way, I’ve flown the F-15C, DA-20, T-34, T-38, T-6, and F-16.  I got my wings in 2010 and have remained flying ever since and currently have just over 2500 hrs of flight time with the majority of that in the single-seat, single-engine, multi-role fighter aircraft known as the Viper (F-16).  I’ve flown the F-16 across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, employed weapons in combat in Afghanistan, and prepared a squadron to take the fight north if North Korea got out of hand.  Of all the things I’ve done with my aviation career, though, being a fighter pilot instructor has been the most rewarding.  While we were stationed in Enid, OK, we had our first kid, Winters, who just turned ten.  We had our second kid, Laura Leigh, in San Antonio, TX and she just turned eight.  We had our third kid here in Alamogordo.  His name is Rhett and he just turned two.  A deployment to the desert followed pretty quickly by a remote tour in South Korea is a good way to create a large age gap between kids.  See the attached picture.

What is your most impactful memory of your time at PCS?

My most impactful memory from my time at PCS would have to be how much the teachers cared about the students and how much they truly enjoyed their jobs.  I really do think that their enthusiasm played a key role in how I modeled my instructional techniques throughout my career.  Starting the PCS football team is a close second.

As you look back upon your education through the lens of a biblical worldview, how has that shaped every good endeavor that you have invested your time, talent, and treasure in since graduation?

Getting educated with a biblical worldview was helpful because how you are educated is typically how you will end up living your life.  Not everybody will, but at least they will have “heard the good news,” early on in life.  Education based on a biblical worldview shaped where, how, and why I invested my time, talent, and treasure.  I invested in myself by continuing my education in a field that I truly enjoyed including my Master’s in International Relations from Troy University.  I found my talents through educational pursuits and was able to accrue the treasures of having a job I love and a beautiful family because of the foundation of a biblical worldview.  The “Why” goes back to the chief end of man as defined in the catechism.  The chief end of man is to glorify God AND enjoy him forever.  I’ve taken that to mean I should find something that I love and pursue it with a passion and I believe I have done just that.  Flying for me is like running for Eric Liddell.  “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast! And when I run I feel His pleasure.”

How would you describe the impact of your PCS education to a family considering our school for their child?

I would say that PCS provided me with opportunities that I wouldn’t have otherwise had.  Having the opportunity to learn in a Christian environment from teachers that care about the kids and are good at their jobs is priceless.  I currently send my kids to a Christian school here in Alamogordo because of my time at PCS so you could say that it has had a generational impact.

What do the relationships you made at PCS look like today?

I have kept up with quite a few of my friends from PCS.  There are probably around 15 friends that I still keep up with fairly regularly, which for a class of ~38 is pretty good.

What is your one piece of advice for a current PCS student?

I would encourage them to always have a thirst for knowledge.  The education they are getting now is foundational to what their future will become.

Go Bobcats!

 

What year did you graduate: 2004

Give us the highlight reel! What has changed since you transitioned from PCS student to PCS Alum? 

It’s harder to think of what hasn’t changed over the last 18 years! Wish I could say “my hairline.” The highlight reel would have to begin with marrying my wife Rebecca in 2008, and our three children (Margaret, Owen, and Libby). Before we moved to Franklin, TN, three years ago, our three kids had the enormous privilege of being PCS Bobcats themselves, with their granddaddy as their principal (Mr. Scott Griffith). After graduating from Southern Miss, I pursued a seminary degree from RTS in Jackson, while serving on the pastoral staff of First Presbyterian Church. Serving there for 12 years was a delight, as was getting to teach a few Bible classes at PCS during that time (in a classroom right next door to Ms. Sugg!). In 2019, just before the pandemic, we transitioned to Franklin, TN, where I serve on staff at Cornerstone Presbyterian Church.

What is your most impactful memory of your time at PCS?

The 2002-2003 basketball season (south state champs, baby). When my 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme got searched by drug dogs because it looked like a dealer’s car. Lots of individual memories come to mind (in the classroom and on the field), but in terms of what was most impactful, I simply remember PCS being a place where I was known, loved, challenged, accepted, and given the chance to grow. Teachers like Mrs. Sugg, Mr. Rowe, Coach Smith, Mrs. Wheat, Mrs. Foster, and many others, all contributed to making PCS a special environment that I look back on very fondly.

As you look back upon your education through the lens of a biblical worldview, how has that shaped every good endeavor that you have invested your time, talent, and treasure in since graduation?

The words of the Westminster catechism still ring in my ears, from those early days of memorizing the first question at school – “man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” I’m deeply grateful for the way that I began to learn at PCS that all truth is God’s truth, that we live in his world as his image bearers, and that every square inch of this universe belongs to and reveals him. My time at PCS gave me this lens through which to see myself and the world around me, and I’m still learning how to see through them!

How would you describe the impact of your PCS education to a family considering our school for their child?

PCS is academically challenging while being spiritually formative. The educational process aims at the head and the heart, in a safe and encouraging environment, and is stewarded by caring, qualified teachers who invest themselves in their students. This is what I experienced 18 years ago, and know remains true today.

What do the relationships you made at PCS look like today?

They look like epic, hilarious, ongoing text threads. In the last 18 years, I’ve made a lot of new friends, but like Ben Rector says, “the truth is there’s nothing like old friends.” Looking back, I wish I had kept up with more people better, but I’m so thankful for the friends I shared life with then and continue to share it with now.

What is your one piece of advice for a current PCS student?

There’s a lot of life to live after PCS. Lean into while you can, love the people around you while you can, and pursue truth, goodness, and beauty wherever you are.

Presbyterian Christian School has produced nearly 1,200 prestigious alumni. These men and women are the best and brightest in their fields of gifting and influence, however, we are most proud by the quiet, ordinary, everyday ways in which they have sought to fulfill the chief end of man…to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Here is only a sprinkle of some of our alumni over the years.

Name?
Alex Doleac (Yes, Adam’s brother)

What year did you graduate?
2010 (12 year club what uppppp)

Give us the highlight reel! What has changed since you transitioned from PCS student to PCS Alum? 
I’m not sure the highlight reel is long enough to document all the changes the past decade has brought. But that won’t stop me from trying…

After graduating from PCS in 2010, I attended The University of Southern Mississippi, where I was a student athlete for the Men’s Tennis Team during my undergraduate and graduate coursework. After obtaining a Master’s Degree in Economic Development, I worked locally for The Area Development Partnership here in Hattiesburg as a Project Manager on their Economic Development Team. I later accepted a position in South Alabama with Baldwin County’s Economic Development Alliance, where I focused primarily on business recruitment, retention and expansion throughout the County, with an emphasis on high-wage job creation and capital investment for the region. During that same process, I also began dating my eventual wife, Hannah, and we got married in 2018. While Fairhope was our immediate first home as a married couple, we eventually moved back to our hometown of Hattiesburg in 2019 to put down roots and build our family here. I began working for my family at Doleac Electric Company, Inc., and Hannah began teaching at Purvis Middle School, where we both currently work today. Fast forward to today, and Hannah and I have become parents to our first child, Noah Alexander Doleac, and have been blessed beyond words by getting to learn and know him.

While so much has changed over the past 10 years, I still feel like the same 17-year old kid most days. A big-hearted, wide-eyed dreamer ready to find God around every corner life takes me around.

Feel free to check out my side-hustle and creative outlet, Alex Doleac Photography. I’d love to capture your family so that one day I can afford to send my son to PCS. Help a brother out.

What is your most impactful memory of your time at PCS?
When I was in 10th Grade, I got so frustrated with the limitations people put on young people to “do things,” particularly community changing things. I felt like the Lord was pushing me to do something, but I wasn’t sure what. With the support of some good friends around me, I approached the PCS administration about starting a student-run club called “The Hands and Feet Club,” a club completely focused on creatively meeting the needs of the people around us as followers of Christ. After some coordinating and planning, I was given permission to start the club under the supervision of a teacher sponsor. During my time working within the club, we were able to raise money for local ministries, host book drives and canned food drives, sponsor Compassion children on the other side of the world, host a fundraiser concert, and, above all else, see more of God in each other and the world around us. I will never forget PCS allowing me to move forward with something I felt called to at the time. While I’m sure it was a minimal request from the eyes of a principal, it helped teach a wide-eyed tenth grader that I could chart my own path and blaze my own trail. That lesson has carried forward throughout every season of my life since.

As you look back upon your education through the lens of a biblical worldview, how has that shaped every good endeavor that you have invested your time, talent, and treasure in since graduation?
There is no doubt that PCS provided me with a faith foundation that still is a cornerstone in my life today. Looking back over my 12 years at PCS, I am most thankful for the teachers and staff members that pushed me to think critically, not only in terms of information, but in terms of motive and intention. In terms of the process and the method. To me, PCS helped me understand that I am a son of God, and my life and all the actions with it, are a reflection of my Father. No matter if it was a math test on a Friday or winning state on the tennis court, it was my duty to not only do it well, but to do it right. Although I had massive failures in this arena (and continue to fail daily), my high school years helped me understand that God gifted each one of us with the privilege of carrying His Spirit within us. Our duty? To use our talents and gifts to the utmost of our ability in a way that honors God and helps show every person that they are, indeed, sons and daughters of our Father.

How would you describe the impact of your PCS education to a family considering our school for their child?
You can spend your time comparing prices, ACT test scores, scholarship money earned, and the like. But there’s never anything more valuable than experience to me. Presbyterian Christian School created an environment that not only was academically superior, but was built upon a foundation of faith. Teachers weren’t just teachers. Coaches weren’t just coaches. Lunch ladies weren’t just lunch ladies. Every person around me—every single one—was there to better me, both as a student and an individual, and they made sure I felt their support. The countless life talks after school, the blood, sweat and tears spent on athletic courts/fields, the early morning prayer breakfasts before the school day, the hallway therapy sessions in the hallway. That’s what PCS is—sure, it’s an incredibly impressive academic institution. But it’s also a place that builds up young people into men and women of God surrounded by a community of believers and mentors that care about their experience. I could not imagine spending my elementary and high school years anywhere else.

What do the relationships you made at PCS look like today?
While they might have started playing on playgrounds and during recess, my friendships with my fellow PCS grads look more like babies and house projects. Nevertheless, I am beyond blessed to have some of the same best friends from high school as my best friends today. Because of my parents enrolling me into PCS from Kindergarten to 12th grade, I have been able to walk through so many of life’s seasons with the steadiness of friends that know me well. That truth lives on today, as I have been able to experience different life experiences with friends I’ve known since kindergarten and preschool.

What is your one piece of advice for a current PCS student? 
Don’t settle for the options in front of you if they don’t meet your expectations. Go find what you want. Build what you want. Blaze your own trail or chart your own course. Whether it’s your career, your faith, your extracurricular activities—never fool yourself into thinking you are limited by your surroundings. Sometimes, we’re put into places to make the conscious decision to get ourselves out. No matter where you are in life, know this: there is always abundantly more. What are you doing to find it?

Since our first class of graduates in 1999, PCS has been represented by many alumni in military service. We are so grateful for each these alumni who have defended our freedom at posts around the world.

United States Marine Corps (5)
Justin Voorbrood, 1999
Timothy Burnam, 2006
Phillip Caldwell, 2008
Zach Girod, 2012
Chad Filbey, 2018

United States Army (11)
Lee Sybert, 2002 (Iraq)
Michael Bridges, 2004
James Bordelon, 2005 (Afghanistan)
Alec Edwards, 2006 (Iraq) IN MEMORIAM
Ali Jones, 2007 (Iraq)
Brennan Desper, 2014
Cody Rosser, 2014
Brendan Jones, 2014
Seth Holloway, 2015
Tanner Rodgers, 2017
D.J. Shows, 2018

United States Navy (4)
Matt Howton, 2000 IN MEMORIAM
William Tallman, 2002
Craig Paterson, 2003
Miles Gunter, 2014

United States Air Force (12)
Boston Little, 2003 (Afghanistan)
Jonathan Brown, 2003 (Iraq)
Myles Smith, 2003 (Iraq)
Wyatt Simmons, 2007
Jordan Dearman, 2008
Michael Johnson, 2008
Gabe Wilson, 2009
Lindsey Caldwell, 2010
Ajah Payton, 2011
Harrison Gunter, 2013
Alyssa Smith, 2014
Adin Misner, 2017

United States Coast Guard (1)
Merwin Moore, 2006

Katie Schilling, 2017