On September 28, 1902, Bishop Edward J. O’Dea arrived on the Navy tug Pawtucket to establish Our Lady Star of the Sea Parish in Bremerton. Under the leadership of the first pastor, Father Louis Allain, the new parish grew. However, the priest who most impacted Our Lady Star of the Sea Parish was Father Joseph E. Camerman, who arrived in Bremerton in 1911. He served as the parish’s pastor until his death fifty-eight years later, his service interrupted only by the time he served as a chaplain during World War I.
In 1921, Bishop O’Dea returned to Bremerton to bless a new $40,000 structure built at the corner of Sixth Street and Veneta Avenue. A school was planned for the lower level. In 1925, Father Camerman and three parishioners traveled to the Dominican Motherhouse in Everett to plead for Sisters to teach in the new school.
On the first Friday of September, 1926, three Sisters from St. Dominic Convent arrived in Bremerton to open a school. They expected between sixty and seventy-five students, but, on the morning of the 8th of September, they greeted 110 pupils in the first six grades.
Enrollment grew steadily. The seventh and eighth grades were added during the next two years. By 1937, Star’s enrollment had grown to 189 students. During the years of World War II, Bremerton’s population ballooned due to the increased production of the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, located in Bremerton. During the 1940’s, six additional classrooms were added. By 1944, twelve Sisters taught Our Lady Star of the Sea’s five hundred students.
After Vatican II, fewer and fewer Sisters were available to teach in Catholic schools. By the 1982-1983 school year, Sister Amanda was the only Sister teaching at Star. When she retired at the end of the 1993-1994 school year, the operation of the school passed completely to Catholic lay people and has remained in their hands since then.
On July 7, 1980, ground-breaking ceremonies were held for a multipurpose facility to house a gym and meeting rooms. The new $680,000 facility became available for parish use in September, 1981.
In May, 1992, a structural engineering study identified serious seismic defects in the sixty-six year-old school building. The Archdiocese required that the building be vacated until the deficiencies were corrected. Options facing the parish were to renovate the old school, build a new school, or close the school completely. That fall, the parish committed itself to building a new school. Classes were moved into the gymnasium, which had been partitioned to accommodate the nine grades (by then, an all-day kindergarten program had been established), a library, and a school office.
Demolition of the old building began. The ceiling of the top floor was removed and stored for use as wainscoting on the hallways of the new school. Also salvaged for use in the new school were the main front doors of the old school, other doors and cabinetry, the arch above the main entrance to the old school, statues, and more than 26,000 bricks. Volunteer help was used whenever possible.
The present, award-winning school building opened in September, 1997. Constructed at the cost of $3.1 million, it encompasses 24,000 square feet on three floors. Besides classrooms, the building includes a large office, a science lab, a computer lab, a childcare room, a library, a commercial kitchen, a cafeteria, a music room, a staff work room, and a conference room.
In the fall of 2006, Our Lady Star of the Sea School and Parish celebrated the school’s 80th anniversary. Events included the dedication of a beautiful plaque listing all who had donated to the construction of the new school facility, an open house, and a celebratory dinner for 400. Sister Joyce Cox, archdiocesan superintendent of schools, was the keynote speaker.
In the winter of 2008, Star’s school commission completed the school’s first strategic plan. Through their strategic planning, the school community looked at, and ahead to, the school’s needs for the coming years and formulated strategies for meeting these needs. Recommendations of the 2003 accreditation team were incorporated into the strategic planning.
A parish once considered too small to support a Catholic school built and paid for a brand new facility when other parishes in other parts of our nation have had to close their schools. Our Lady Star of the Sea School is tenaciously holding on to the best of its past, while tackling the challenges of the present and the future.
In the spring of 2002, the staff of Our Lady Star of the Sea School embarked on a comprehensive self-study. Culminating this process was the 2003 visit of an accreditation visitation team. Their findings coincided with those of the self-study. The school was granted a full, six-year term of accreditation by the Northwest Association of Accredited Schools and the Western Catholic Education Association. In 2008, the staff embarked on a second self-study. In 2010, Star was again granted a full, six-year term of accreditation.
