SKANEATELES - Their soaked robes, dresses and pants may have eventually weighed them down in the water, but spirits were high as one graduate after the next cannonballed, belly-flopped or otherwise threw themselves into Skaneateles Lake following Skaneateles High School's 57th commencement Sunday.

Clift Park was a cacophony of shrieks, laughter and air horns from nearby boats as the graduates engaged in the end-of-ceremony tradition. Flip-flops floated in the water, girls hugged and guys jumped on one another's shoulders, trying to push their friends into the clear water below.

“I was pretty much ready to jump in with all of my friends last year,” graduate Brynn Baldetti said prior to the ceremony, adding that the ritual of jumping in the lake - gown and all - is something that underclassmen look forward to for years.

In addition to the dive, the 133 SHS graduates made a splash in another way, garnering nearly 50 different kinds of awards and scholarships.

Also recognized were foreign exchange students from France, Mexico, Thailand, Japan and Argentina.

With memories of the past four years on their minds, graduates' emotions were all over the place.

Some were excited about the day, while others were nervous about what is to come.

Heather Smith was feeling a little bit of both.

“I'm nervous about not going back, being finished, starting over,” said Smith, who will attend Cayuga Community College, where she will study elementary education. She plans to be a kindergarten teacher.

Her grandmother, Carol King, watched her granddaughter prepare for the ceremony and was all smiles.

“(I'm) proud, very proud,” King said of Smith. “She's grown a lot.”

Also beaming with pride was Chris Johnson and Jean Shook, parents of Libby Johnson, a graduate likely best known in the Skaneateles community for her state championship-winning lacrosse skills.

“She has become an articulate, bright young woman,” Shook said, noting that it might be hard to talk about Johnson without tearing up. “It's been fun to watch her achievements both academically and athletically.”

Such achievements by all of the graduates were highlighted Sunday by SHS faculty and school board members, as well as by valedictorian Claire Hennigan and salutatorian Hannah Waite.

Waite, who will attend Middlebury College, spoke first, using the children's book “Harold and the Purple Crayon” as the theme for her speech.

In the book, a young boy uses a crayon to draw whatever he needs. At one point, he wants to go home and winds up drawing a city of windows in search of his own.

“Every one of us today graduating has our own purple crayon, and we are all poised to draw our own adventures,” Waite said, adding that it's important for Skaneateles graduates to always remember “our bedroom windows, our home.”

Hennigan, who will pursue a degree at the University of Virginia, talked about the importance of finding out who you are on your own terms and not defining yourself by what others think or want.

“The person you identify as yourself will change,” Hennigan said. “But do what you love and forget the rest.”