Graduation festivities at Knoxville High School officially begin on Sunday, as the school hosts its Baccalaureate at the Knoxville Performing Arts Center.

The school had gone about two decades without hosting a baccalaureate, but members of the Knoxville Area Ministers Association banded together about three years ago and sought to have the event restored.

Pastor Brent Hanna from the Knoxville First United Methodist Church is working with students in helping to plan this year’s ceremonies; he tells KNIA/KRLS News the students are the ones who have worked to make this event something memorable.

“I just brought a skeleton program that we could fill in; and boy, did the students step up to the plate and do that. This is very much their molding and shaping of this; and some said, ‘yeah, we want to sing’ or ‘we want to do this in the band’…it was easy to get our three speakers, too, which was nice,” Rev. Hanna says.

The Knoxville High School Baccalaureate will begin at 2:00 p.m. at the K-PAC, one week prior to Graduation Day for the school’s Class of 2019.