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.
The doctrine of creation teaches that God made the world complete and good yet capable of infinitely rich development. God, moreover, made man in His own image, able to know and develop the creation, and charged him with the privilege and duty of subduing and ruling it to God’s glory.
From this creation mandate springs the whole human culture, including the arts, sciences, and the humanities, together with all attendant categories of research and learning.
God charges parents with the responsibility of equipping their children for fruitful service in the Kingdom of God and human society by nurturing in them a respect for and mastery of the knowledge, skills, and values that constitute their cultural inheritance.
Philosophically and historically parents have often found it appropriate to delegate certain aspects of this responsibility to other individuals or institutions uniquely suited to aid in the task of education. The traditional institution has been the community school.
The doctrine of the fall teaches that man and every aspect of his being and culture has been corrupted by sin. Apart from the preserving and restraining effects of God’s grace, fallen man’s understanding of God, of himself, and of the world would be so darkened that all of his cultural endeavors would produce only error and falsehood.
The doctrine of redemption teaches that God is at work redeeming the whole of His creation through the salvation in Christ of new humanity, the church. To convert, sanctify, and govern His church, God has given His holy and inspired Word, which is preserved in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. This Word of Truth is the only infallible rule of faith and practice for God’s people.
To man’s original task of preserving and developing culture, has now been added the duty of defending truth and refuting falsehood. Thus, God’s people are bound in obedience to Him to conform every aspect of their life and being to Biblical principles. In the cultural sphere, this requires the establishment and maintenance of schools that are distinctly Christian, seeking to suffuse every facet of the educational experience with an understanding of the world and of life that is consciously Biblical.
Despite the struggle against falsehood, the Christian school’s primary task remains that of preserving and developing the cultural inheritance. God in His mercy has been pleased to restrain sin in the world, by His common grace, even among the ungodly, so that He showers the blessings of insight and knowledge of His creation, like the rain, upon the righteous and the wicked alike.
It is the duty, therefore, of Christian educators to assimilate the best of human learning from whatever source, purge it of ungodliness, incorporate it into the body of Christian knowledge, and teach it faithfully to their students.
Based upon the foregoing statement of educational philosophy, Presbyterian Christian School, Inc. is fully committed to the following:
The mission of PCS is to provide a comprehensive college preparatory education distinguished by a biblical worldview to equip students with the moral integrity, intellectual capacity, and social conscience to impact the world for Christ.
We believe that the proper purpose of all human endeavor is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever; that God reveals to men how to glorify and enjoy Him in His holy and infallible Word, the Bible, which He has given by the inspiration of His Holy Spirit in order that men may certainly know what they are to believe concerning Him and what He requires of them.
We believe that there is but one living and true God, eternally existing in three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
We believe that God created the heavens and the earth and all that exists in them.
We believe that God created man, male and female, in His own image, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, with dominion over all creation.
We believe that the first man, Adam, willfully sinned against God, bringing down upon himself and all his descendants the awful consequences of the fall, which include: God’s just anger and condemnation, the corruption of his whole person, spiritual death, and liability to all the miseries of sinful human existence.
We believe that God did not leave the world to perish in sin, but out of His great love and mercy purposed to deliver from the consequences of the fall a multitude which no man can number and with them the creation itself.
We believe that God has accomplished this redemption through Jesus Christ, who, though He was and ever continues to be the eternal Son of God, yet became fully man, obeyed the law of God perfectly, suffered the full penalty for sin on behalf of His people, died, was buried, and rose again from the dead on the third day. He ascended to the right hand of the Father where He now makes continual intercession for His people and governs the whole world as head over all things for His Church.
We believe that all who truly repent of their sins and put their whole trust in Christ only are saved by the merit of His life and death alone and are received into the number and have a right to all the privileges of the children of God.
We believe that those who belong to Christ will strive by the power of the Holy Spirit, faithfully to perform all the duties laid upon them by the holy law of God, ever reflecting in life and conduct the perfect example set before them by Christ Himself.
We believe that God has established His church in the world and endowed it with the ministry of the Word and the holy ordinances of His kingdom as a means of making the gospel known to the world and of communicating, through His Spirit, the benefits of redemption to His people.
We believe that as Jesus Christ came once in grace, so He shall come a second time in glory to judge the world in righteousness, assigning to each man his eternal reward and consummating His kingdom by the establishment of a new heaven and new earth wherein His people will reign with Him and serve Him in glory forever.
Presbyterian Christian School began in the minds and hearts of several men at Bay Street Presbyterian Church in 1975 with the primary objective to educate elementary aged students through the lens of a biblical worldview. They began with 23 students in September of 1976. By Christmas of 1978, the enrollment had grown to approximately 55 students and space became a problem. At the invitation of Woodland Presbyterian Church, the school was moved into their newly built facility on Lincoln Road and became a joint venture of both churches.
As the school continued to grow, portable classrooms were brought in, and at one time were as many as 13. By the late 1980’s, a successful junior high was finally established, and thoughts turned to senior high. In 1994, PCS started adding one grade a year until PCS was K-12 in 1998 with 635 students. In May 1999, PCS graduated its first class of 11 students.
Due to this rapid and continued growth, the Board of Directors began the process of looking for a property to build a secondary campus to help relieve the crowded conditions on the Lincoln Road Campus. The school was given 23 acres of land by the Tatum family on Bonhomie Road to construct the secondary campus. In January of 2000, grades 7-12 moved into a new academic building on Bonhomie Road with 13 classrooms. Since 2000, the original building now contains 33 classrooms, five science labs, a graphics and photography lab, a fine arts studio, a robotics lab, and a library. Other tertiary buildings were added that included a Cafetorium, a gymnasium, and state-of-the-art athletic facilities.
In 2009, PCS and First Presbyterian Church agreed that it would be beneficial to Christian education in Hattiesburg if First Presbyterian Kindergarten became a part of PCS. The PCS preschool still operates on the First Presbyterian Church campus off of Hardy street.
After several years of study, the Board moved forward in purchasing 45 acres of property from the Tatum family adjacent to the Secondary Campus on the corner of Bonhomie Road and W.S.F. Tatum Drive. In the summer of 2012, the elementary campus was moved from Lincoln Road to its present location into a state-of-the-art 58,000 square foot facility that houses 27 classrooms, a library, a computer lab, a cafeteria, a Kindergarten Discovery Lab, a music room, an art room, a reading center, the elementary administration offices, and the PCS school administration offices.
The school serves a student body of just over 960 students in grades K3-12 and employs a faculty and staff of over 120. Although a lot of growth has occurred, PCS remains committed to the original goals of teaching sound academics in a Christian context and from a perspective that openly acknowledges God’s place as Creator and Sustainer of all reality. PCS continues to assist parents by providing a comprehensive college preparatory education distinguished by a Biblical Worldview to equip students with the moral integrity, intellectual capacity, and social conscience to impact the world for Christ.
Presbyterian Christian School is honored to be named one of the Top 50 Christian High Schools in America by thebestschools.org. The former headmaster, Dr. Allen Smithers, served the school in the headmaster position from July 2007—July 2021. The PCS Board of Directors hired Dr. Seth Parrish as the new PCS Head of School in January of 2021, and we are excited to see him lead the PCS Family into the next season of all the Lord has in store.
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
PCS is fully accredited by MAIS and Cognia