General Robin Rand, Commander, Air Force Global Strike Command, and Chris Lovell, BPCC’s first-year Men’s Basketball Coach, are slated to give the commencement addresses at Bossier Parish Community College tomorrow.
The graduation ceremonies will be held Friday, May 12, at the College’s Health & Physical Education complex, 6220 E. Texas St., Bossier City, LA. This Friday’s ceremonies will mark BPCC’s 75th graduation.
General Robin Rand will address graduates at the 9:30 a.m. ceremony for the divisions of Science, Nursing & Allied Health as well as Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.
Gen. Robin Rand is the Commander, Air Force Global Strike Command, Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, and the service component commander to U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) for all bombers, Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), and Nuclear Command, Control and Communications (NC3) systems. As the commander, he is responsible for organizing, training, equipping, and maintaining combat-ready forces that provide strategic deterrence, global strike and combat support to USSTRATCOM and other geographic combatant commands. The command is comprised of more than 33,700 professionals operating at two Numbered Air Forces and eleven active-duty, Air National Guard, and Air Force Reserve wings. Weapons systems assigned to the command include Minuteman III ICBMs, B-1, B-2, and B-52 bombers, UH-1N helicopters, the E-4B National Airborne Operations Center aircraft (NAOC), and the NC3 system.
General Rand was commissioned in 1979 after graduating from the U.S. Air Force Academy. He’s had multiple flying tours; served as an air liaison officer with the U.S. Army; and has had staff tours on the Joint Staff, Office of the Secretary of Defense, and Air Staff. General Rand’s previous commands include the 36th Fighter Squadron, USAF Weapons School, 8th Fighter Wing, 56th Fighter Wing, 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing at Balad Air Base, Iraq, 12th Air Force (Air Forces Southern), and prior to this assignment, Air Education and Training Command. General Rand is a command pilot with more than 5,080 flying hours, including more than 470 combat hours.
Coach Chris Lovell will address graduates at 2:00 p.m. for the divisions of Behavioral-Social Sciences; Business; Communication and Performing Arts; and Liberal Arts.
Chris Lovell is in his first year as the Cavalier men’s basketball head coach. He came to Bossier Parish Community College from Prestonwood Christian Academy in Plano, TX. At Prestonwood, Lovell led a nationally-recognized and ranked men’s basketball program, which just won its fifth straight Texas TAPPS 5A State Championship in 2016. The Prestonwood Christian Men’s Basketball Program was recently named in the top 36 High School Basketball Programs in the country since 2010-2011 by Max Preps. While at Prestonwood, Lovell has had the fortune of coaching some of the best players in the nation, including Julius Randle of the Los Angeles Lakers. Lovell has seen his players go on to play at NCAA Division I programs like Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Kansas, Arizona, Ohio State, Florida Atlantic, Texas A&M, and at other levels of college basketball. He previously held coaching positions at Grapevine Faith High School, Trinity Christian Academy, and Briarcrest Christian School.
Previous to coaching, Lovell served as the head student pastor for Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, TX, and Germantown Baptist Church in Memphis, TN. He also has deep local roots playing high school basketball at the former Trinity Heights Christian Academy and then college basketball at LSU-Shreveport. Lovell graduated from LSU-S with a bachelor’s degree before attaining a master’s degree in Christian Education from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
