2026 Snow College student honors

Five Snow College graduates received special recognition and spoke at graduation ceremonies Thursday and Friday, April 30 and May 1.

Brooklyn Gilgen
Daughter of Mike and Stephanie Gilgen of Fountain Green, was valedictorian of the Class of 2026 and spoke at the main commencement in Terry Foote Stadium May 1.

She graduated from North Sanpete High School in 2024 with a 4.0 grade point average. She also participated on the North Sanpete cheer team all four years.

She chose Snow partly so she could continue cheerleading and became co-captain of the Snow cheer team. She graduated summa cum laude with an associate of science degree.

At Snow, she took anatomy, physiology and human development and discovered a passion for health care. She plans to continue at Snow in the respiratory therapy program and eventually become a physician assistant.

Gilgen credits her father with teaching her she can accomplish anything through determination and her mother for showing her how to lead with compassion.

The theme of Gilgen’s valedictory talk was personal identity and how Snow helped her find her identity. “Our whole lives, our identity has been based around things we did,” she said. “We have been students, athletes, employees, leaders and so much more.”

But in time, she said, students have learned that identity is not what they have done, but rather, “the raw, authentic, stripped-down version of yourself. … What doesn’t change is the person you’ve built underneath it all, the values you hold, the way you treat others and the strength you’ve developed along the way.”

Audrey Inglish
Daughter of Adam and Kristi Inglish of Spring City, was designated as the academic honor student, which means she was the top student in the software engineering bachelor’s program.

By age 14, she was involved in her family’s IT business. She accompanied her father when he installed hardware and trained customers on the company’s software products.

In 2021, she graduated from North Sanpete High School at the top of her class. She has interests beyond technology, including art, photography and writing.

She pursued software engineering with a goal to learn more about user experience design. While she has a strong aptitude for the technical aspects of software development, the creative aspects still excite her the most.

Inglish talked about the continued learning essential in her field, relationships with professional team members and the persistence required to make the greatest contribution.

She said her professors have inspired her by continually pushing the limits of their knowledge and picking up new skills. “That’s something I hope to carry forward in my own career,” she said.

From her peers, she said, she has learned that the people around you can make something worth doing. “I hope in the future we can all strive to be the person who makes someone else’s job a little bit more meaningful,” she said.

She added, “We don’t know what the next few years will look like, but we do know how to learn. The more we learn, the more we can contribute to our teams, our communities and the world around us.”

Elizabeth Pugh Adams
Is the academic honor student, or top graduate, in the bachelor’s program in commercial music. She is the daughter of Kathleen and Riley Pugh of Blanding.

As a child, listening to the scores of “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Lord of the Rings” inspired her passion for film scoring and composition.

She began piano lessons at age 8. Her piano teacher has been Denise Frost, president of the Utah Music Teachers Association. She participated in Achievement in Music, a piano evaluation program; the Piano Guild, which provides goals and performance evaluations for young pianists; and piano composition competitions, earning high marks and numerous awards.

At Snow, she has been the accompanist for the Women’s Chorale and keyboardist for the Commercial Music Ensemble. She plans to continue to develop a music production studio in Blanding. She has been scoring music for Picture It Palmer, a Blanding media business that provides local event streaming, funeral coverage and creative projects, and for Nizhoni Films, a Native American film company.

Adams said if she has learned anything at Snow, it is that “practice does not make perfect.”

She said there have been many times when she has fallen short in a performance she spent months preparing for. But, she said, “Life is not about perfection, but about our progress. … It’s about how many times we … were resilient enough to get back up, dust ourselves off, and choose to learn, grow and do better next time.”

“Life is not about perfection, but about our progress,” she said. “And most important, the friends we make along the way and the person we choose to become.”

Brett Bailey
Is the son of Mark and Andrea Bailey of Salem, Utah County, and the honor graduate for Snow College at Richfield. He graduated with an associate degree in business and a 4.0 grade point average.

He and his wife, Lilly Stratton Bailey, competed together on the college’s cross-country team. He said his most memorable moment at the college was when Snow took third in the National Junior College Athletic Association championship meet.

The Baileys started at Salt Lake Community College but transferred to Snow when SLCC cut the cross-country program. “We had to make some big changes if we wanted to continue running,” he said. They transferred to Snow. “We could tell early on that this change was better than any of our previous plans.”

He quoted the axiom, “We make plans, and God laughs.”

“I believe his plan is far better than anything I could have thought of and my time here at Snow has definitely proven that,” he said.

He plans to pursue a bachelor’s degree in accounting at Utah Tech University.

Wyatt Holyoak
Is the honor graduate from the Ralph Okerlund School of Technical Education on the Richfield campus. He is the son of Dusti Holyoak and grandson of Don and Kathy Holyoak of Scipio, Sevier County, and graduated from Millard High School.

Holyoak earned certificates in automotive technology, diesel technology and welding, as well as a commercial driver’s license.

He served as a residential assistant and later residential director of student housing in college-owned housing near the Richfield campus. Last summer, he launched his own small-engine repair business.

“Today, we’re celebrating more than just diplomas, we’re celebrating the quiet persistence, the long nights, the early mornings and the moments when giving up would have been easier, but we didn’t,” he told fellow graduates.

Some students arrived knowing what they wanted to study while others had to change course a few times, he said. “That’s the beauty of a place like this. It doesn’t demand perfection, it invites growth. … Snow College has a way of making big dreams feel possible in a small-town setting.”

“What matters is that we keep moving forward, that we stay curious, that we take what we learned here, the resilience, the friendship, the confidence, and we use that to build something meaningful,” he said.