New yearbook advisers routinely face obstacles, but when the little pink phone message sheet appeared in my mail tray in mid-November, it aroused no suspicion. The message seemed harmless: “Call the yearbook plant.” Yet, the news I learned when I made that call was straight out of the yearbook X-files.
As yearbook adviser, you are the captain of a ship setting out for a one-year voyage with an inexperienced crew. If you have been on this trip before, you know about the rough waters ahead. It is likely you have already begun to prepare. However, if this is your maiden voyage, you probably are not sure what to expect.
Putting together a yearbook is no easy task, especially in high school. Staffers have to plan the entire book, coming up with a theme and making overall coverage decisions. Then there are the school events – lots of them – each requiring coverage by a writer and photographer. Once the events are covered, the editing-rewriting-editing process begins. Cutlines, headlines, tool lines follow, along with the spread design. All of this, in addition to homework, sports and everything else high school brings.
What do you mean Bubba won’t be in the football team picture?” screamed the angry father. “He was the team. Without him there would have been no postseason play. No championship. No Coach of the Year. No, no…”
During my first few years as yearbook adviser, I wanted to have control over everything. I did not want the students to have too much responsibility for fear of mistakes and errors in the yearbook. As a result, the yearbook process became cumbersome and overwhelming. It took up a large part of each school day and, frankly, the better part of my life.
“Do you think anyone will get bored with the repeating pictures?” Liz asked me as she was finishing the last division page. “Maybe we should have used different ones.”
The Wings yearbook staff at Arrowhead Christian Academy, Redlands, Calif., does not like to select a theme that capsulizes the school year because they believe that kind of a theme can only be done so many times before it becomes difficult to develop it meaningfully. Instead, they work to pick a theme that could reflect the school year, but one where its focus will allow the staff to give the book a personality.
A private space, comfortable couches, lots of food, idea lists, and open minds are required. It is not a time for the timid. By the end of the session, the individuals involved will have become a team. Love it or hate it, all will have committed to the common purpose of creating a book centered around the chosen theme.
Thirty-six years ago, after graduating from Western Illinois University in the spring of 1963, I began my teaching career at Yorkville High School, Yorkville, Ill., as a business education teacher and adviser to the student council. I was not the yearbook adviser that first year and had no real intention of ever becoming one. That would soon change.
Embark. Embark. Now there is a theme word for you. Every yearbook in eras past has featured threshold-crossing, challenge-facing, embarking students in some form or another.