Pearl River Community College Aviation and Aerospace Workforce Academy opens!

Pearl River Community College cut the ribbon on the long-awaited Hancock County campus earlier today.

This facility has been a dream for Pearl River Community College since 2016. Eight years later, the college is ready to welcome its first year of students.

PRCC President Adam Breerwood tells us coming back to Hancock County, however, has been the college’s plan since 2005 when Katrina flooded the local campus

“Everybody thought we were going to leave and give back to Hancock County, but we did the exact opposite at Pearl River,” Breerwood said. “We knew the resiliency of this community and the resiliency of the Gulf Coast community and we dug our heals in… and here we sit all these years later with a brand new, beautiful campus.”

The campus is 38,0000-square-foot with an 18,000-square-foot hanger. multiple agencies helped fund this 21 million-dollar project, including the capital.

“The reality is, this is the future,” Governor Tate Reeves said. “This is the future and Mississippi has a leg up in our competition, because of investments like where we are today.”

The Hancock County campus offers a multitude of programs outside of aviation and aerospace, but Sydni Shoemaker, a hydrography instructor here, says this campus is vital in making stem education more accessible in Mississippi.

“One of the biggest issues that I run into when recruiting for my program is that no one knows what it is,” Shoemaker said. “I know when I was in high school I had no clue of the opportunities that were out there, and so I went to Pearl River, went to USM, and found my way. But now I am so excited to be at Pearl River and being a part of that opportunity and giving that opportunity to students.”

“At our main campus in Poplarville, we offer all the traditional resources that all our colleges offer and we have all our athletic programs and dorms, but we have to go to where the people are,” Breerwood said. “We have to go to where our industry needs are. We have to go to where we’re needed to create clear pathways, not only to education but also to a good job market.”