BHS grad brings home the gold

If not for a random encounter that eventually led Lauren Fleming to the Western Washington University rowing team, she might not be at the university at all.

“I was unhappy at Western during my freshman year and I even thought about transferring,” she wrote in an email interview. “Rowing provided me with a niche and gave me that sense of belonging I think I had been missing my first year at college.”

Fleming, a 2008 graduate of Bainbridge High School, was in the bow for the women’s varsity four that won a national championship at the NCAA Division II national rowing championships on Lake Natoma at the Sacramento State Aquatic Center in Gold River, Calif. May 27-29.