You won’t see Alex Reese lose her cool—no matter what the elevation.
“She doesn’t let the pressure get to her she doesn’t go the high and lows and that’s what you need in a pilot,” Alex’s mother Anna Reese said.
“If something goes wrong, you don’t need them to go into a panic, you need them to start thinking systematically going ‘what am I going to do.’”
Over the summer the Spruce Creek outside hitter took up a family business of sorts –trying her hand at flying airplanes.
“My dad is retired air force, so he use to fly in the Air Force and he’s the flight coach at Embry Riddle,” Alex Reese said.
“I’ve just been around flying my entire life and I just think its cool how you can defy gravity and I kinda want to pursue it as a career and thought I’d start early.”
The entire family flies and right now Reese is working on earning a private pilot license at DeLand Aviation—the certification would put her ahead of her class next year at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, where she’s also committed to play volleyball.
“I am looking forward to playing volleyball in college and practicing to be a pilot there and hopefully I want to fly other commercially or for corporations privately,” Alex said.
Focus and balance seem to be the common denominator between the two very different interests for Alex.
“I am thoroughly impressed with Alex,” older brother Skyler said.
“She’s playing high school sports not just at the regular level but a serious varsity level, she’s doing club on the side when she’s not do that. She’s is the hardest program in high school I-B is incredibly difficult work load in addition to classes addition to school and then she’s taking flight on top of that so I don’t know where she is getting the time for all of this.”
But she does—even taking her first solo flight back in August – having her t-shirt wings clipped and put up on display inside the DeLand Aviation shop by owner Bob Brown.
“I like taking off most because it’s like getting off the ground and you are just free,” Alex explained. “I like the feeling of just not being on the ground anymore.”
Click on the video link for the complete Spotlight story on Alex Reese.