On Friday, June 2 at 2:00 p.m., many members of Newton South's class of 2006 released helium-filled balloons into the sky to celebrate the end of their last day of high school.

A speaker was set up on the football field, playing music and amplifying class officer Amber Holtzclaw's attempts to get the crowd excited in the spitting rain with still ten minutes left of school. Some class members handed out balloons near the gate, while the rest congregated on the field. With ten seconds left, the class counted down and released all the balloons that they hadn't already managed to lose.

The main purpose of this ceremony, according to some students who occasionally think, was to make sure as many seniors as possible were outside the school building when 2:00 rolled around. If no seniors were in the building, no pulled fire alarms, vandalism incidents, or other disturbances were likely to occur as they have in past years.

No fire alarms were pulled, and there were no reports of vandalism following the end of the school day. Instead, the soon to be graduated senior class walked towards the parking lots, looking bored.

Class president Nitish Mehta, who organized the balloon ceremony, said he considered the event “a great way to express our excitement in a fun, harmless way.”