The school year is filled with numerous events and activities—far too many to recount them all in detail. Luckily, there’s a way to not only remember them but to actively relive the experiences: the yearbook!

Located deep within the bowels of the building in the 400-wing, the yearbook room is a relatively small room adjacent to the video yearbook (VY) room. From the onset of the school year, the various members of the yearbook committee labor tirelessly for hours there nearly every day after 8th period. Their goal: to publish a book that encapsulates the emotion and feeling of each event, major or minor, as well as the atmosphere of the school.

The process begins with the creation of the ladder—a diagram of the yearbook’s planned contents. This is how the committee decides the order of the events and just how much attention each one will receive. There is both a physical version of the ladder and a digital version using Jostens, the website in which the yearbook is digitally constructed page-by-page, and also the company that assists the committee during the book’s creation. 

In addition to Jostens, the yearbook committee also works in close collaboration with Lifetouch, a photography company responsible for taking the formal photos of the students that will appear in the yearbook. The members of the committee have spent countless hours doing the most dreaded, monotonous activity in all of the yearbook-creation process: checking the names below these pictures to ensure that they are all spelled correctly.

The yearbook committee members aren’t just randomly chosen. Instead, they most often are specifically selected in their junior year (or in some cases apply for a position) and then spend the rest of the year being trained in how to create a yearbook by the seniors on the committee. The junior members are often given the menial tasks while the process of the book’s actual creation is in the hands of the seniors. The Jostens website essentially has a template for yearbook creation and the seniors are responsible for placing material onto those pages—everything from text, art, photographs, backgrounds, etc.

However, being a member of the yearbook committee is not without its difficulties. When asked what challenges she encountered, senior Victoria Fiorelli explained, “Definitely being able to keep up with classes while also going to events, and sports games, and meeting all deadlines.” As mentioned previously, the members of the yearbook committee dedicate so much of their time to creating the book, that it must be hard to find the correct balance.

Yet overall, the members of the yearbook committee seem to love their jobs. According to senior Fiona Hamilton, “The most rewarding part of being in “yearbook” is knowing that I’m part of creating something that will last generations. Yearbook is forever.” She then smugly added, “Yearbook over VY.” The two clubs are in competition quite often.

Chief editor Bianca Russell agreed with Fiona’s statement, “My favorite part is getting to create an amazing book that will last forever with some really awesome people.” It appears that not only does the yearbook committee preserve our high school memories, but they also create their own that they’ll cherish for a long time to come.