Published by the Students of Johns Hopkins since 1896
March 29, 2024

Hopkins remembers Abigail Bastien

By JACOB TOOK | September 7, 2017

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Courtesy of dennis o’shea Abby Bastien passed away in July.

The Hopkins community mourns rising sophomore and student athlete Abigail Bastien, who passed away in July.

Bastien’s body was found north of Homewood campus on July 13. In a press conference, the Baltimore Police Department stated that they believed her death to be accidental.

Students and faculty mourned the loss, sending support to Bastien’s family and holding a small candlelight vigil organized by senior Tina Kanonuhwa.

“[We] organized the Candlelight Memorial for those who were at Hopkins and couldn’t make the trip to Ohio for Abby’s funeral,” she wrote in an email to The News-Letter.

Kanonuhwa explained that students lit candles in white paper bags and blew them out in farewell.

“It was a very emotional night, but there was so much love for Abby present,” she wrote.

Head track and field coach Bobby Van Allen wrote in an email to The News-Letter that she would be remembered forever and sorely missed.

“Abby was one of the most caring and passionate girls I’ve had the luxury of having on my team,” Van Allen wrote. “She had a way of making everyone else around her smile on a daily basis.”

Assistant track and field coach Shedrick Elliott III wrote in an email to The News-Letter that her commitment to personal goals and her positivity would be missed on the team.

“She was an intrinsically motivated young lady with a tunnel vision-like view when it came to her academic, athletic and life goals,” he wrote.

In an email to The News-Letter, Bastien’s teammates wrote a few words about her.

“You could always tell when you were running behind Abby,” they wrote. “Her silver jacket blinded everyone behind her, and she wore shorts even during the coldest winter workouts.”

They wrote that they considered her to be family and touched on her strength of character.

“She treated the accomplishments of her friends and coaches as her own,” they wrote. “Somehow, she wiggled her way into our hearts as though she had been there our whole lives. She had a big personality and a big heart, and we miss her every day.”


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