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LAY IT OUT - Collaborating, senior yearbook staff members Jenny Richardson and Mayci Dobson design a page of the school's yearbook. The yearbook staff began working on this year's edition at the start of the school year.
Photo by Chelsea Baines.
Student Feature: The Write Stuff
FHS student author Katie Ray is a reporter for the FHS Register newspaper.
Fifty years from now, students will turn back to their old high school yearbooks to reminisce on their high school memories. But will they think of the students who produced it, of the work and effort put forth by the yearbook staff?
Working with a team of 15 members, these students design, write, edit, and photograph from the beginning of the year through spring break to complete a book that captures the memories and events of the school year.
Yearbook adviser Stephen Teague seeks to provide a student-led class atmosphere while also teaching the students how to put the publication together. In the end, the yearbook will be the result of the creativity of the staff.
“I rely on editors to make key decisions -- from design ideas, to coverage, to the overall look and feel of the book,” Teague said. “I try to teach the editors to be leaders and for the staff members to take responsibility and ownership of their work.”
Five of the 15 staffers are editors. The pages of the book are divided among the members and the students are responsible for completing their pages on time.
“Staff members get about six spreads each to do, and they also help out with the senior, junior and sophomore mugshots sections while the editors have two to three spreads,” said junior assistant editor Hannah Golden.
Most of the students will not see the yearbook until it is completed and handed out in May. Because of this, many do not know what a long, tedious process it is to complete a yearbook.
“It takes from the beginning of the school year until spring break to make the yearbook,” Golden said. “We have deadlines in between those times where we send in large chunks of the yearbook (to the publisher, Jostens).”
“We have to spend so much time outside of class,” senior photo editor Mayci Dobson said. “We come up on weekends, stay after school, and spend a lot of lunches in there.”
After completing five major deadlines of about 60 pages each, the yearbook staff is able to rest a couple of weeks after spring break before the time comes to hand out the yearbook. Although it is a long process, the staff will benefit from creating the book.
“Students who are on yearbook staff get experience in a variety of subjects such as marketing, sales, writing, desktop publishing, interview skills, and working in small teams, just to mention a few,” Teague said.
According to the Jostens website, yearbooks spark conversation, provoke signatures, receive handwritten wishes, and carry emotional goodbyes. Even though it may be expensive, many feel the yearbook is well worth the cost.
“They are expensive, but as you age, it is great fun to look back and see what you looked like, what you were in, who you hung out with, and it is awesome to look at your parents’ yearbook,” oral communication teacher Sallie Langford said. “Think of the laughs your kids will have at your expense.”
“Yearbooks are important because they provide documentation for each unique school year,” senior editor Hailey Dunsworth said. “Sometime in the future, students and teachers alike will use their yearbooks to reflect on FHS in the 2010- 2011 year.”