Baccalaureate service held for BHS graduates

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, June 24, 2026

This year’s Baccalaureate service for graduating Bainbridge High School seniors took place June 7 at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, sponsored by the Bainbridge Island North Kitsap Interfaith Council.

The BHS seniors who planned the program for this year’s Baccalaureate chose the theme, “Beyond the Narrows.” The program included student and faculty speeches and music.

Nadia Troyan, a BHS Senior, shared her thoughts on navigating the waters of high school. She expressed gratitude for the lessons learned and those who have helped her on the way. “Like the waters of the Tacoma Narrows, we are moving beyond the familiar. It is exciting and it is intimidating, but we know we will always have a home to come back to.”

Biology teacher Charles “Cory” Dunn gave a deep dive into the waters to relate the narrows analogy to the lives of the students in the audience. “I spend my days in the AP biology classroom at BHS, and my evenings with the youth group at Rolling Bay Presbyterian Church. Which means I have been watching this generation from two very different angles — the scientific and the spiritual — for a long time.”

Allie Paulson-House sang a vocal solo, “Glorious” by David Archuleta. More music was provided by Lillian Jackson on French horn, accompanied by Theodora Carson. Jackson brought her wind ensemble, consisting of musicians Nicole Stipe, Maddie Grossman, Callie Martin, and Thomas Bearden, to play the “American Wind Quintet” by Antonín Dvořák.

The students also folded origami boats, wrote notes of gratitude and hope on them, and then taped them onto a long, blue, paper “river” attached to the front of the stage in the church.