Two future Navy fighter pilots, a New York-bound singer-songwriter, and an already-seasoned world traveler with a goal of becoming a global political changemaker. These are a few of the impressive members of Traverse City’s high school class of 2025. With many local schools holding commencement ceremonies this weekend, The Ticker gives you a chance to meet some of this year’s graduates.

Elijah Bauer, TC Christian
Profile: One of three valedictorians at Traverse City Christian this year, Bauer maintained a 4.0 GPA all throughout high school. He’s also part of the school’s worship team and runs track and cross country. You may have seen him out on the Bayshore course last week, where he clocked a half marathon time of 1:29:25.
Plans: Bauer will continue running competitively at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, where he also plans to major in business or finance. He’s attracted to the entrepreneurial scene and hopes to launch his own business own day. “I really like the idea of starting something from the ground up and watching it grow,” he says.
Highlight: “Every year, the seniors do a mission trip to a different place, and this year, we went to Belize,” Bauer shares. “It was really cool to experience Christianity in a different country, and to meet people from different cultures. It was also a great opportunity for me to use some of my knowledge of the Spanish language, which I’ve been studying since elementary school.”

Madeline Bildeaux, West Senior High
Profile: One of just two National Merit Finalists to come out of TCAPS this year, Bildeaux also ran the table at West’s recent Class of 2025 honors convocation, winning the Achievement of Excellence Award, the Titan Hall of Fame award for academics, and Female Athlete of the Year honors for her accomplishments in volleyball and track and field. She’s also president of West’s National Honor Society.
Plans: Inspired by watching the Blue Angels at the National Cherry Festival air show as a kid, Bildeaux is headed to the United States Naval Academy, where she’ll continue playing volleyball while also majoring in electrical engineering. Her ultimate goal? Becoming a Naval flight officer.
Highlight: Bildeaux says the thing she’ll cherish most from her high school years is her experience in athletics, “but not the moments during competition,” she clarifies. “I think the moments that really stick out are in between, when you're one-on-one with your teammates after a competition, you're all tired, and you’re sharing those moments together. I think those bonds and friendships will last for years to come.”

Cameron Black, Traverse City High School
Profile: A budding artist – you may have seen her drawings and paintings at a TCAPS showcase at Crooked Tree Arts Center last year – Black used the free-form nature of TC High’s independent arts classes to find her voice as a creator. “We had free rein deciding what kind of projects we were going to do, and I loved that, because I like getting to express myself and what’s in my head by putting those things on paper,” she says.
Plans: Inspired by TC High math teacher Aaron Smith, Black is enrolling at NMC to pursue a career in education. “He made me realize that I didn’t hate math,” she says. “I had mostly given up [on the subject], but he just brought about this turning point for me, and that made me realize that I could bring back inspiration for other kids in a similar way.”
Highlight: Black points to recent volunteer opportunities she’s had with local nonprofits like Cherryland Humane Society, Project Feed the Kids, and Father Fred. “I realized that I love to volunteer and help people, and reach out in the community like that,” she says.

Katie Clark, TC Central
Profile: If you went to a Trojan football game this season, you probably saw Clark on the field as part of the marching band, where she served as mellophone section leader. She’s also a pole vaulter on Central’s track team and a member of the VASA Raptors, Traverse City’s high school Nordic ski club. When she wasn’t doing all that – or maintaining a rigorous schedule of AP courses – Clark taught youth theater at Old Town Playhouse.
Plans: Clark will major in organizational studies at the University of Michigan. “I have always been a big fan of teaching, but I don't want to be a teacher, so this is a degree that will allow me explore a lot of interests in the business and education areas,” she explains. Clark also hopes to to carry forward her passions for the arts and music, too – perhaps by joining the pep band or bringing her talents for backstage hairstyling to the U of M theater department.
Highlight: “It might sound cliché, but I really do think the highlight was the friends I made along the way,” Clark laughs. “The chance to be with them, through everything, meant so much to me.”

Naomi Deik, Greenspire
Profile: A member of the Greenspire community since sixth grade, Deik is part of the school’s second-ever high school graduating class. She was part of Greenspire’s honors society and student council, as well as the senior editor for the yearbook. For the past two years, she’s also attended the teacher academy at the Northwest Education Services Career-Tech Center.
Plans: Deik is off to Western Michigan University, where she’ll major in psychology with a minor in child development. “I was figuring out if I wanted to be more on the education side or more on the psychology side,” she says of her time in the teacher academy. “I decided that my skills would be better used working one-on-one with kids, helping them through any mental health issues they may have.”
Highlight: Deik loved the tight-knit student community at Greenspire – “They all feel like my siblings,” she says – and loved coordinating ways for them all to have fun together. “I’ve done the planning for all the dances at school, which made me feel even more connected to my class,” she tells The Ticker.

Zinnia Dungjen, Interlochen
Profile: Dungjen wanted more music opportunities than she was getting at Glen Lake High School, so she applied for the singer-songwriter program at Interlochen – without telling her parents. You might recognize her as one half of A to Z, the band she formed with fellow Interlochen singer-songwriter Audrey Mason, which plays gigs around northern Michigan during the summer months.
Plans: It’s off to the Big Apple for Dungjen, where she’ll enroll at NYU as a media, culture, and communication major. “I’m hoping to form some type of alt-rock band and gig around New York, and hopefully start climbing the music scene there,” she says. “I really want to be an artist in my life, but I also want to learn more things, so that's why I'm majoring in an academic major.” Beyond performance, Dungjen is interested in pursuing entertainment journalism, with aspirations of writing for the likes of Rolling Stone.
Highlight: Most of Dungjen’s high school highlights were about rubbing shoulders with the music industry. Examples include opening for Five for Fighting as part of the Interlochen Arts Festival two summers ago, interviewing Grammy winner (and Interlochen alum) Norah Jones, and going on songwriting program showcase trips to Los Angeles and Chicago.

Eden Hadfield, Grand Traverse Academy
Profile: Hadfield maintained a perfect 4.0 GPA throughout high school, including in the 46 college credits she earned through dual enrollment at NMC. Thanks to those stats, Hadfield will give the valedictorian speech at GTA’s graduation ceremony this afternoon. She’s also class president and a varsity volleyball player, and even earned student-of-the-year honors from NMC’s world languages department last spring, due to her excellence in the college’s Spanish courses.
Plans: It’s maize and blue for Hadfield, who is off to the University of Michigan to major in economics – likely with a minor in Spanish. Right now, she’s eyeing a career as a financial advisor. “I’m very interested in how money works, and how to make money work for me and for other people,” she says.
Highlight: While much of Hadfield’s high school career has been about rigorous academic pursuits, she says it’s the simple pleasures she’ll remember, like competing alongside her volleyball teammates, or celebrating the end of the journey with her fellow graduates on senior skip day. “It was really fun just being out on the beach and hanging out as a class,” she says of the latter experience.

Jackson Hochstetler, West Senior High
Profile: Another National Merit Finalist, Hochstetler was a STEM leader at West, even helping to cut the ribbon for the school’s new Innovation & Manufacturing Center. His core pursuit throughout high school was robotics, which he joined freshman year and “quickly became very passionate about.” He took over team captaincy as a sophomore, following what he describes as “a major loss of leadership on the team,” then proceeded to lead the Titans to the robotics world championships three years in a row. He’s also a mountain biker, riding as part of the Rim Benders Racing team.
Plans: Hochstetler will follow his love for robotics to the University of Michigan next fall, where he'll enroll in the school’s robotics undergraduate program. From there, he hopes to “move into a career in the space industry.”
Highlight: Though the trips to worlds have been rewarding, Hochstetler says his proudest moment of high school was the first time his team won a robotics competition, at the school’s home event back in 2023. That victory proved to be a turning point, he says, and West has won that home-turf competition every year since.

Abby Pfannenstiel, TC Central
Profile: Just a few of the hats Pfannenstiel wore throughout high school: coxswain for the Tritons Rowing team, first-chair cellist for the TC Central orchestra, No. 2 singles player for the varsity girls tennis squad, and coach for the Grand Traverse Ski Club. Her “main passion,” though, is global studies, something that has already taken her on adventures to Nepal, Sweden, The Netherlands, the Himalayan mountains, and the Canadian wilderness.
Plans: Pfannenstiel is bound for Middlebury College, a small liberal arts school in Vermont “known for their international studies program.” It’s the perfect fit for her planned major: international politics and economics. Beyond college, Pfannenstiel is eyeing law school, with hopes of finding a career that allows for global travel and global impact. “I’m definitely interested in working within women’s health equity,” she says.
Highlight: During her trip to Nepal, Pfannenstiel volunteered at a school in Pokhara, helping build a volleyball court for the school to start a women’s team. “All the sports there were dominated by boys, so it was kind of a women’s empowerment initiative,” she says. The experience inspired her to get more involved with volunteerism back home, and she’s been working ever since with the Student Support Network, the TCAPS program that helps students experiencing homelessness.

Lola Ruoff, TC Central
Profile: A “high-powered academic” is how TC Central Principal Ben Berger describes Lola Ruoff. The description is apt, given that Ruoff’s high school workload included no fewer than eight Advanced Placement courses, along with heavy involvement in school clubs like Model United Nations, Student Environmental Advocacy, and the Global Studies Academic Community. Beyond academic excellence, Berger also says Ruoff is “unbelievably kind.”
Plans: Ruoff has chosen Hope College for her next chapter, drawn by its small size and familiar feel. “I wanted to pick something that was smaller, because I like having a close connection with my teachers,” she says. “And Holland is similar to Traverse City, which was one of the big appeals to me. It has a beautiful waterfront, and a really charming downtown.” Ruoff is undecided on a major, but says she hopes to study abroad at some point.
Highlight: “One of the main things is the amazing teachers I’ve gotten to work with,” Ruoff says, specifically naming TC Central instructors Kathryn Shelley-Barnes (English), Jami Grant (French), and Julie Puckett (math). “I wouldn't be the same person, let alone the same student, had I not had such great teachers.”

Dougie Sail, West Senior High
Profile: Sail spent the past two years studying as part of the electrical occupations program at the Career-Tech Center. This spring, he was recognized as one of the top electrical students in the state, winning bronze in the “industrial motor control” category at the statewide SkillUSA Michigan competition in Grand Rapids.
Plans: Sail plans to go right into the workforce, ideally with the local IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) Union Hall. Such a job, Sail says, would be a good spot to complete the 4,000 hours of on-the-job training he needs to earn his journeyman electrician’s license.
Highlight: West Senior High’s 2025 prom king and queen are Dougie Sail and…his basketball? The joke, he explains, dates back to his freshman year, when he and his friends would play pickup basketball games in the gym every morning. Even after those games tapered off, Sail proceeded to bring a basketball to school every day for the rest of high school. Fast-forward to prom, and Sail and his basketball were both voted prom royalty. “The ball got a tiara, and I got a crown,” he laughs. We’ll call it the most heartwarming man-plus-ball friendship since Tom Hanks and Wilson.

Brady Tharp, St. Francis
Profile: A three-sport athlete (football, wrestling, and rugby) and a key cog in student government (student body secretary), Tharp still found time for his studies. “At the end of junior year, I found out I was ranked first in my class, and my goal senior year was not to lose that,” he says. He succeeded, ending his high school career as valedictorian.
Plans: Much of Tharp’s academic motivation came from his goal of getting into the U.S. Naval Academy. “My dad graduated from the Naval Academy in 1999, so I grew up in the Navy,” Tharp says. Like Madeline Bildeaux, another student on this list, Tharp was inspired at a young age by seeing the Blue Angels, and now hopes to become a fighter pilot.
Highlight: During his junior year, Tharp picked up photography “as a service to our wrestling team, because everyone wants to have cool pictures to post on Instagram, but no one ever came to take photos for wrestling.” Soon, taking photos had evolved into a new passion, and it took Tharp to some unique places. “I even got to go to Comerica Park with our baseball team, and sit in the dugout and take pictures there,” he says.

Pictured, from left to right: (Top) Bauer, Bildeaux, Black, Clark, Deik Dungjen; (Bottom) Hadfield, Hochstetler, Pfannenstiel, Ruoff, Sail, and Tharp (with his dad)