Routt Catholic celebrates 35 seniors at graduation Sunday

Routt Catholic High School sent 35 seniors into their next chapter Sunday, filling Our Savior Catholic Church with families and classmates for a graduation that felt more intimate than large-school ceremonies and more personal to Jacksonville’s Catholic school community.

The Class of 2026 finished its high school run in a setting that matched the size of the school itself. Routt, founded in 1902, says about 40% of its students are not Catholic, a reminder that the Jacksonville school draws families from beyond one faith community. With a student-teacher ratio of 11:1, the school’s day-to-day environment has long been built around close contact between students and teachers, and that scale showed at graduation as the senior class reached its final milestone together.

Routt’s own numbers also point to where many of those graduates are headed next. The school says 96% of its graduates attend 2- or 4-year colleges or universities, underscoring a strong academic pipeline that has become part of the school’s identity in Morgan County. For a class of just 35 seniors, that track means each student’s next move carries weight not only for families, but for the school’s broader role in preparing students for college, work, service, or life after Jacksonville.

The ceremony capped a stretch of senior recognition that had already begun earlier in May. Routt’s May 2026 calendar listed senior recognition activities, including a senior-parent luncheon and graduation rehearsal on May 9, a sequence that turned Sunday’s ceremony into the final step in a larger run of end-of-year traditions. That buildup reflected the rhythm of a small school where milestones are shared across classrooms, hallways and parish life, not just in one afternoon.

In Morgan County, where Jacksonville is the county seat and had a population of 17,616 in the 2020 census, a class of 35 is large enough to matter and small enough that nearly every family in the room knew someone on stage. The county’s population was 32,915 in 2020, a scale that helps explain why Routt graduations still draw such visible attention. Sunday’s packed church marked both an ending and a handoff, as 35 seniors left Routt with the school’s longtime academic and faith-centered imprint behind them.