It’s been seven years since Trent Hendricks attended Economics & Business Analytics classes at Patrick Henry College, but not much has changed, according to him. “There are still the same things that I loved when I was a student here,” Hendricks said. “I love the people and the quality of this community. There’s something special about it here that I’ve missed.”
The school has grown significantly since Hendricks first started as a freshman at PHC in 2014. He initially numbered among the small group of students who forged a new path with the Economics & Business Analytics degree when the program was only a year old. He was a full-time student until the spring semester of his junior year, when he moved back to his family home in Lake Huron, Michigan for nine months. He returned to Virginia to continue dating his then-girlfriend, Lillianne, and eventually became the front-of-house director for the Leesburg Chick-fil-A. Now, as the current Resident Director for men at PHC, he is diving back into the community he loved so much as a student.
The journey to becoming RD was a whirlwind for Hendricks. “It started when my wife and I were praying that we would have some way of giving back to the community,” he said. Hendricks and his wife, Lillianne, attended Loudoun County Baptist Church and struck up a conversation one Sunday with John Southards, the previous Patrick Henry RD for men. Southards did not plan on returning to the position of RD this fall. “[Southards] asked that I pray for the school because it didn’t have anyone in the RD position for men,” Hendricks said. “My wife and I were praying about it, and I felt like, ‘Why not just throw my name in the hat?’”
Hendricks exchanged a few emails with Vice President Howard Schmidt, where he was encouraged to submit his name for consideration to Dean Sandra Corbitt. After a series of interviews, Hendricks joined the PHC community. “It seems a little surreal,” he said. “The student body, the faculty, the staff that I get to rub shoulders with . . . it’s hard to overstate the impact that a positive environment can have.”
While Hendricks shoulders the responsibility of spiritually guiding the student body, as well as taking care of student life affairs, he also hopes to someday open his own video game development studio. As a lover of good stories—stories that are “good and true and beautiful,” as he puts it—Hendricks starts this new chapter of his life with eager anticipation for the year ahead. “Two months ago, I would not have thought that I’d be here. But God’s will be done, and I think this has been [His will] so far.”
