DAPHNE — Bayside Academy’s class of 2007 graduates have already proven that they can compete in the world.

During Sunday night’s commencement ceremony, headmaster Tom Johnson told well-wishers that the graduates had garnered about $3.8 million worth of scholarships.

Seventy percent of the class members had received scholarships, he said, to applause from the audience.

“The school facing the bay is blessed and we have been blessed with the class of 2007,” Johnson said.

Graduates will go to state schools as well as some well-known institutions in other parts of the country such as the Naval Academy, Texas A&M, Tulane, Notre Dame and the University of Pennsylvania.

While students, these same young men and women also excelled at various sports, providing skills that will follow them throughout life, Johnson said.

“We hope as faculty, and as parents, that we have instilled in each one the ability to make sound decisions, power to handle the pressures, patience in problems, strength to think clearly and to serve creatively and to endure consistently,” Johnson said.

“We hope that each graduate has developed an inseparable relationship of right and integrity,” he added.

Despite their current accomplishments, Johnson also had some advice for the graduates.

“To the class of 2007: now is the time to pull up your anchors, lift your sails and remind each other that it is the set of the sails and not the wind that determine where you shall go,” he said.

Valedictorian Hunter Dyas got laughs and applause during his speech, a presentation that focused on the importance of maintaining a sense of humor in life.

Humor, he said, “allows us to meet new people, to make and keep friends.” It also helped distinguish the graduating seniors, Dyas said.

“Without humor, we couldn’t have become the perfect and ever-so-friendly class that we are,” he said with a broad grin at his fellow classmates seated on stage.

Memories are an important part of high school and Dyas predicted that the graduates wouldn’t soon forget their years at Bayside.

“These memories are more numerous than our headmaster’s golf trips,” he quipped, pausing momentarily for the audience’s laughter to stop.

Salutatorian Joseph Nickerson recalled much earlier days when he couldn’t wait to graduate.

But things have changed recently, he added.

“As I look back now at the 13 years that I’ve been at Bayside, I can remember many times when I thought that I couldn’t wait to graduate — like all the times that I was desperately trying to stay awake in my classes,” Nickerson said.

“But now that graduation is here, I know how truly amazing this place is,” he said. “I feel blessed for having been able to attend a school with such an amazing environment and faculty.

“To have a grade with 39 students and classes with even fewer is unheard of,” he said.

“I will have to make a huge adjustment from knowing everyone in my high school by name, to going to a school with 19,000 students.”

Graduating senior Galen Brunson, of Fairhope, will be attending Birmingham Southern to play football.

“It’s a Division Three school, so I got academic scholarships to go,” said Brunson, a fullback who has been playing football since seventh grade.

Leaving school friends and family members won’t be easy, but Brunson is looking forward to college.

“It’s exciting having so many new things to think about and do,” he said.