On the last day of high school, a slow tractor roll into a bright future for these Minnesota seniors

FOLEY, Minn. — It was the last day of senior year. The first day of everything that comes next.

At Foley High School, that could mean only one thing.

Tractor Day.

The first tractors rumbled into the high school parking lot early Friday morning. Dozens followed. Sparkling clean, decked with balloons and streamers, pulling trailers loaded with laughing teenagers on hay bales.

For decades, high schoolers in this central Minnesota town have rolled to the last day of school at the lowest possible speed, in the grandest possible style.

"It's a good way to kind of close it out," said senior Megan Trigg, standing next to a trailer covered in pink balloons and streamers. The tractor ride to school took a leisurely 25 minutes that morning, giving motorists behind them plenty of time to enjoy the jokey sign tied to the back — a riff on the classic line from "Mean Girls": Get in Losers, We're Graduating.

Trigg and her friends — Megan Latterell, Gabby Johnson and Gracie Blank — grew up watching the tractors roll through each May. Now it was their turn.

"People come out and wave, people drive by and honk. It's pretty cool," Johnson said.

No one seems sure when or why the tradition began. There are other rural high schools that celebrate tractor days. Few do it bigger or better than Foley.

"Wow! A John Deere!" Emily Miller's youngest son, Beckham, called out, pointing as a vintage green tractor pulled up to the school. As adult volunteers directed traffic, the green tractor joined the orderly rows of parked farm equipment — with the kindergartner excitedly narrating every turn. "Look, Mom!"

Tractor Day is an event for the whole community. Neighbors wave from the curbs. Families head to the high school to watch the fun.

But this day was for the Class of '23. Seniors like Miller's older son, Evan, who worked late with his friends on Thursday; getting the tractor ready, putting the final touches on the cutoff jean short-shorts for their group costume.

Seniors hugged, snapped selfies and danced across the parking lot. The airspace over Foley High School filled with arcing water balloons.

The seniors were freshmen in March 2020. Their high school years were marked by pandemic disruptions, distance learning and missed milestones. Give these kids all the water balloons their hearts desire.

"That's why a lot of us want to do the traditions now so much," said senior Kristen Drexler, standing with classmates Madelyn Craft, AJ Rahm and Haley Hamilton, sporting matching cowboy hats. "We want to try to get everything in that we had to miss for so many years."

Foley High Principal Joel Foss estimated that some students had to be on the road as early as 5 a.m. with their slow-moving rigs. A tractor can't exactly cruise down country roads at 60 miles an hour. Some parents trailed the tractor convoys in their cars, hazard lights flashing.

For the students, Tractor Day is worth the early start and extra effort.

"It's a farming community and kids like to show off their tractors," said Noah Lentner, who rode in with friends Ben Lewandowski, Emmit Olson, Alex Wirtzfeld and Mason Arnold.

Students compete for titles like cleanest tractor, smallest tractor, biggest tractor and, of course, best-decorated tractor. The machines were festooned with taxidermy and decoys, sporting llama balloons, draped in American flags.

One student brought a push lawn mower and left it parked next to one of the John Deeres with a sign arguing the case that lawn mowers are just very, very, very small tractors.

There was a trailer decked in rainbows and trans pride flags. There was a tractor waving a Trump 2024 flag. It was Tractor Day in America.

A group of students gathered by the rainbow-draped tractor, keeping an eye on it for the classmates who had decorated it. A few water balloons had been lobbed its way. The Class of '23 looks out for each other.

"I think it taught me how important friends are," Craft said.

"Tractor Day is a good get-together with everybody," she added. "Foley's a very rural and country place, and we can celebrate in a way that feels like us."