Brooke (Hatchett) Monroe

Though I can’t say the high school years were my favorite (read: awkward), I am thrilled to see what everyone has been up to and how we've all changed. I hope more people write in, Sharon! Great job putting this together.

So after high school, I went to Ole Miss because my daddy always told me I could choose any college I wanted, as long as it was Ole Miss. Seriously, I liked it. I miss Oxford. While there I interned for the PR department and worked for a teeny tiny newspaper in Cleveland that worked me like a slave. It was great. Except the no sleeping part. That was not great.
I graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in journalism. My parents moved to Houston, Texas while I was in college, and I felt God tugging me this way, too. I moved here in 2007 and took a job as a business/feature/city hall/whatever-else-they-wanted reporter with the Houston Chronicle. The job was cool and all, but it was much cooler when God brought along His other reason for bringing me here—my hubby. Jim was the media specialist at the church I had been attending, and we met at singles Bible study. Oh yeah, singles Bible study. He initially insulted my inner gamer during a Halo match, but we worked through it. We married in December 2008, so I left the Chronicle in early 2009 to stay home and eat bon-bons and watch soap operas. Not really. Life was just really tumultuous at the time. Sadly, my parents separated about a month after Jim and I married, Jim’s grandmother was ill, and we bought our first house, which needed a bit more TLC than we bargained for. I describe the before pictures of our house as, “It looked like Mexican restaurant threw up all over the walls.” I can paint like a boss now.

In November 2011, my son Ezekiel was born. We call him Zeke, and he is the cutest thing ever. That is, of course, a completely objective statement.  Shortly after, we felt God was leading us to make Jim’s side business his full-time job. He’s a videographer with a focus on wedding films. I’m going to shamelessly brag on him here and post his website so my fellow girls can ooh and ahh over his beautiful work—www.monroeweddingvideography.com. Anywho, I stay busy playing stay at home mom and finishing up my first book (hopefully that will actually happen sometime this summer).
I’m pretty sure I wrote way too much, and I hope some of you who haven’t posted yet will, too. Bye!

Brittany (Weeks) Hill

  10 years has flown by for me.  After high school, I started off at Northeast CC. I met lots of great people that I still consider good friends.  Then after two years I headed off to MS State to study Accounting.  My years at Mississippi State seemed to be really busy, but we made plenty time to relax at the pool too.  My senior year, I went through the recruiting process for a job that was two years away, it was stressful and fun at the same time!  I ended up with a Big 4 Accounting Firm, KPMG, that let me do an internship in Memphis second semester of my senior year.  Loved it and decided that is where I wanted to be.  I graduated with my Bachelors of Accountancy in May 2007, then I continued to Graduate school for the next year at MSU.  Graduate school is where my love for State grew even more!  I worked in the Office of Admissions as a Campus recruiter.  I got to learn so much more about the school than I ever imagined and got High School seniors just as excited about campus as I had been.  I also ended up meeting a really great guy named Benjamin who slowly made me fall in love until I couldn’t deny it anymore.  We traveled together, enjoyed MSU sports together, but most of all we loved breaking it down on the dance floor at every wedding/bar/event we attended. 

 

After a busy year of grad school, working, and studying for the CPA exam, I finally graduated in July 2008 with a Masters of Professional Accountancy, moved to Memphis, TN and added CPA to my name.  I worked with KPMG for a year and a half before moving back to Tupelo to join the Accounting department at BancorpSouth.  In August 2010, I married my dancing partner and moved into our first house.  Two became three when we adopted Jiggy, the craziest boxer puppy I’ve ever met.  I love him dearly even though he is extremely stubborn.

 

 

Benjamin and I lived through many renovations in that house before we sold it in 2012 to move to Pontotoc where he is from.   We are now currently building my dream house on a lake (ready in July) and I’m so ready for this next stage in our lives!