Legacy of Learning: Danny and Angela Davis

PHC has shaped how Danny Davis (GOV, ‘04) and his wife, Angela Davis (GOV, ‘03), approach education, family, and service in so many ways.

This summer, Danny started his new position in Loudoun County as Deputy County Administrator. But his work for the local government began before he even graduated from PHC, when he interned with the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors.

“I loved all of the work I got to be a part of,” he said. “I got to see a lot of big impact in what I did.”

Danny Davis

For Danny, his senior-year internship was the beginning of a career in local government. Danny spent nearly 12 years with Loudoun County before serving as assistant town manager for Purcellville and later town manager for Middleburg. In those roles, he worked on the practical decisions that shaped the community, from development to local government operations. After his time in Middleburg, he returned to Loudoun County, serving in the higher executive role of deputy county administrator.

Danny quickly found that the skills that he learned at PHC proved invaluable to his career. “The challenge of rigorous writing and communication in our classes is something that you don’t see too often today in most other education,” he said.

As Deputy County Administrator, Danny regularly moves between different organizational levels, taking complicated information and distilling it for departmental staff and elected officials.

Angela Davis

Danny and Angela met and started dating in their first year at PHC. They married after Angela graduated in 2003. During her first married years, Angela spent several years tutoring a homeschooling family before becoming a full-time mother. “I loved the classical approach at PHC, and I wanted that for my children, from the beginning,” Angela said.

Rather than treating education as simply the accumulation of information, Angela focused on developing her daughters as whole people. “PHC taught me that the aim of education is virtue and character formation,” she said. “Our goal was to cultivate a love for learning. Not just cramming data into little brains.”

The education that formed Danny and Angela has made its way to the next generation.

Amelia Davis

Amelia Davis, now a junior at Patrick Henry College, grew up hearing about PHC and visiting the campus with her family for Homecoming. Though her parents were thrilled at the thought of their daughter attending PHC, they wanted her to make her own decision without feeling pressured.

For a time, Amelia considered taking a gap year to work or serve in ministry. But as she explored her options, she found herself going back to her love of the classics, reading, and composition.

Danny remembers one conversation while driving Amelia and her sister home from church; he asked about her interests and what she wanted to study.  What Amelia described was almost exactly what one would study as an English major at a classical school. She had no hesitation in enrolling at the school that already felt like home after high school graduation.

Patrick Henry College exists to glorify God by challenging the status quo in higher education, lifting high both faith and reason within a rigorous academic environment; thereby preserving for posterity the ideals behind the "noble experiment in ordered liberty" that is the foundation of America.