BBCC nursing program sends off 18 graduates

MOSES LAKE — The Big Bend Community College nursing program bid their 18 graduating students farewell during a special pinning ceremony inside Wallenstien Theater Saturday.

Graduates were surrounded by family and friends as they received their nursing pins and recited the official Nurse’s Pledge – both a symbolic welcoming into the nursing profession.

Big Bend president Terry Leas congratulated the group for making it to graduation day.

“We really appreciate the support that family and friends have given to our graduates. This is a long, arduous and lonely journey,” he said during the ceremony. “This is probably the most selective and hardest to get into program that the college offers.”

Big Bend Director of Health Education Programs Katherine Christian said this year’s pinning ceremony was bittersweet for nursing faculty.

“While we have invested ourselves in preparing you for the nursing profession, you have also been sharing with us your lives, your hearts, your joys and struggles, your insights and your challenges, and each of you will leave behind with us a little bit of yourselves,” she said.

Nursing student Taylor Hickman addressed her fellow graduates during the ceremony. The group also heard from BBCC nursing instructor Mercedes Gonzalez-Aller.

Graduates will be taking their NCLEX (National Council Licensing Examination) in the next several weeks.