BEMIDJI — Hundreds of outgoing Bemidji State University seniors tossed their caps at the school’s 98th commencement ceremony on Friday.

“This is your day,” BSU President Faith Hensrud beamed, moments before snapping a picture of the assembled graduates at the Sanford Center and encouraging them to text their friends and family or mug for selfies. “You made it!”

Hensrud, who officially became BSU and Northwest Technical College’s president at a ceremony last fall, said the school’s class of 2017 is special to her.

“In some ways, I feel like I’m graduating today as well,” Hensrud said. “The journey of your final year has also been the journey of my first year as president of Bemidji State, indeed, as president of any university. While I never doubted we would make it, I share your joy in being here and I share your thrill of anticipation for tremendous possibilities, even if they are not all crystal clear right now.”

In all, 1,018 students were eligible to receive undergraduate degrees Friday, along with 48 master’s degrees.

Commencement speaker and Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Anne McKeig told graduates about her childhood in nearby Federal Dam, Minn. Her family didn’t have much money, and McKeig started working at 13. She chose her legal career over dentistry and, maybe less realistically, country music stardom.

“I chose in ninth grade to be a lawyer and I never swayed from that goal despite many telling me that I could not because I was just a girl from Federal Dam,” McKeig remembered. “But I had a mother and I had Northern Minnesota…This area of the state will forever stand behind you in all that you do. Northern Minnesotans have a sense of pride in the area that is second to none. That pride extends to support for all who have ties here.”

McKeig encouraged students to reach out fearlessly to powerful people they admire, and to set lofty goals.

“If I accepted all of the ‘no’ responses that I received I certainly wouldn’t be where I am today,” she told the soon-to-be graduates. ‘If someone is trying to close the door on your dreams, just get a toe in there. Just get a toe in there and keep it open.”

Student Senate President Kayley Schoonmaker, herself a graduating senior, told her classmates that the university grew on her after she transferred from a community college.

“Human beings have this miraculous way of turning the ordinary into the extraordinary,” Schoonmaker said. “A simple classroom or dorm room becomes a haven of cherished memories. A faculty member becomes a lifelong mentor and friend. A simple piece of paper or lump of clay becomes a beautiful masterpiece, and an ordinary place becomes a home.”

Students here turned the university into their home, Schoonmaker said, and that’s why it was so difficult to leave.

“It’s OK to say goodbye…We will go on to our next adventure and we’ll make a home there,” she said. “The best is yet to come.”