Bloomington High School South graduation 2026: Where will you choose to water the grass?

On Saturday morning (May 30), Bloomington High School South held commencement exercises for the Class of 2026. Included here are a report on the remarks by student speakers and photographs. 

Alice Racek: React to the world

Alice Racek opened her remarks by revisiting a time capsule she and a friend had created the day before the start of freshman year. Inside, she found a $5 bill, a pink friendship bracelet, and a note to her future self that turned out not to deep inspirational advice, but “comments on a sport I no longer play, a color that is no longer my favorite, and a future that didn't happen the way I thought it would.”

Racek described the experience of high school as “a mix of setbacks and successes,” different for every student. Few, she suggested, could have accurately predicted their four-year path from an eighth-grade vantage point.

Drawing on an essay by poet Mary Oliver, Racek emphasized the importance of responding to what life presents, rather than following a predetermined script. Oliver wrote: “In the beginning, I was so young and such a stranger to myself, I hardly existed. I had to go out into the world and see it and hear it and react to it before I knew at all who I was, what I was, or what I wanted to be.”

For Racek, “react” was the key word. Graduates won’t leave with a roadmap, but they can stay open to experiences and “let our experiences shape us into the people we are becoming.”

“We have survived the successes and failures of high school, and now we get to go out into the world and react to it, and continue to determine who we want to be,” Racek said.

Ian Quick: Choose where you want to water the grass

Ian Quick framed his speech around a Roman proverb that inspired the modern saying, “The grass is always greener on the other side.” For much of high school, he said, he and many classmates assumed they were simply “turning the page to a better chapter.” Only recently, he said, had he realized that no one actually knows whether the next chapter will be better, or what “the other side” will really look like.

Quick had four pieces of advice for his classmates.

First, he urged graduates to process their emotions about leaving high school, describing his own mix of sadness, excitement, fear, and anticipation, and calling that “bittersweet feeling” normal. Second, he stressed the consistency of daily habits: We are what we do day after day after day.”

Third, Quick told classmates to get comfortable with being uncomfortable, because change will constantly push them into unfamiliar situations. Finally, he encouraged them to “control the controllable” telling them: “We are the masters of our fate. We are the captains of our souls.”

Quick closed with a return to the proverb about grass. Graduates cannot guarantee that “the grass will be greener on the other side,” he said, but they can decide how and where to invest their energy: “We can choose where we water the grass … We can slowly form our lives day by day into the dream we all have to eventually live in a beautiful green pasture.”

Alaina Maki: Leave it better than you found it

Alaina Maki invited her classmates to rate their high school years on the familiar one‑to‑ten scale. She guessed only a few would call it a perfect ten, but said each number would be different, because “no two people in this graduating class have walked through these halls the same.” Quoting Piglet from “Winnie the Pooh,” she said, “The things that make me different are the things that make me me.” She rated her own experience in high school a seven out of ten, thanks largely to small moments: friends made during academic support time, a teacher who truly understood her, and the relief of submitting a tough assignment.

Maki said that the hardest moments counted just as much as the happy ones, pointing to a 46% on an AP chemistry test and a badly missed attempt at a game‑winning shot as examples that felt awful in the moment. But those moments reshaped how she prepared, played, and thought about herself.

Maki pointed to some advice from band director Will Nicholas with the advice she hopes they all carry with them: “Leave wherever you go better than you found it.” For Mackie, that means small, intentional acts, like “answering your teacher's question in a silent classroom, noticing the classmate who's carrying a heavy weight or making friends with the student sitting alone at the lunch table.” Maki said, “Doing those things can “transform both your own journey and the lives of those around you into a true 10 out of 10.”

Photos: BHSS graduation (May 30, 2026)