Jackson Academy is proud to announce that the Rev. Wes Ingram ‘94, has been named the recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award, presented annually to a graduate who exemplifies a life of purpose and significance through professional achievement, community service, and loyalty to JA.
Ingram, now serving as associate pastor at Oxford University United Methodist Church in Oxford, Mississippi, has devoted his career to pastoral ministry and the spiritual formation of young people. After transferring to Millsaps College, where he played football from 1995 to 1998, Ingram answered a call to ministry that has since spanned decades and communities across Mississippi.
When Ingram learned he had been named Jackson Academy’s Distinguished Alumni of the Year, his first thought was not one of pride. It was a question: Am I really that successful?
That moment of honest reflection became the foundation of a powerful address Ingram delivered to JA seniors Monday evening at the Old Capitol Inn in Jackson, a challenge to measure success not by the world’s standards, but by something far more enduring.
Ingram grounded his message in a verse drawn from Genesis: that every human being is created in the image of God, bearing divine worth regardless of circumstance. “Every face you pass carries eternal worth,” he said, and therefore, how we treat people is a measure of success.
He spent 13 years as a youth pastor at Christ United Methodist Church in Jackson, where he helped develop a small-group discipleship culture known as D-Groups, an initiative that has profoundly shaped the faith lives of countless JA students and students from other schools. He subsequently served nine years as a youth and family pastor at Parkway Heights United Methodist Church in Hattiesburg before assuming his current role in Oxford.
Ingram holds a doctoral degree from Fuller Theological Seminary, where his studies deepened his conviction that meaningful mentorship changes the trajectory of young lives. “When young people know adults see them, it makes a difference,” Ingram said.
His influence continues through those he has mentored, many of whom have gone on to lead D-Groups or answer their own calls to ministry. He and his wife, Katie Walsh Ingram, class of 1999, reside in Oxford with their two daughters, Hallie (19) and Kendall (16).
Ingram is the seventh recipient of the Jackson Academy’s Distinguished Alumni of the Year award. It is now a tradition that the recipient of the Distinguished Alumni of the Year presents to the senior class at its annual awards night dinner.
As he closed his talk, Ingram left seniors with a charge as simple as it was profound: “Be people of compassion and let your success be measured by your compassion.” We cannot always control circumstances, our feelings, or the thinking or actions of others, he acknowledged, but we can be compassionate by approaching differences without fear, remembering that every person you encounter bears the image of God, and engaging with others with compassion, regardless of their circumstances.
