The yearbook is a staple of the high school experience, with a group committing the year to creating something for students to remember. Recently, the staff reached their deadline for the finished book. Senior co-editor-in-chief Mara Somogye was one of the people to submit it to the printer.
“We haven’t gotten it printed out yet, but looking through all the pages, just thinking about some of my favorite pages, I’m just so excited to see them printed,” Somogye said. “I am so proud of the final product. The yearbook is literally my child; I’m so excited about it.”
Somogye said one of her favorite parts of the yearbook class is the people in it and the editors alongside her. She said she has grown immensely with their company and the help of adviser Rachel Chushuk.
“Some of my goals for this year were to make the perfect book ever. Obviously, that’s always the end goal,” Somogye said. “But I really wanted to build connections with my other editors, because none of them had ever been editors before. So I wanted to kind of take charge and teach them too.”
Somogye is the co-editor-in-chief alongside senior Haley VanGilder. Together, VanGilder said the two used class time to answer questions and help staff members create their pages.
“My responsibility is making sure that all of my staff members are on top of getting their stuff done. I have to make sure that they’re on task and meeting the deadlines,” VanGilder said. “Then, I also have spreads to work on and [I have to] make sure that I’m doing my work and they’re doing their work.”
However, making a spread, or two pages of the yearbook, takes time and effort. VanGilder said the most challenging part of designing the book was coming up with the theme, with all the pages using the same font and design elements.
“When you make a spread, you interview a bunch of different people for your page. They have different topics, whether it’s sports or certain classes, like math or English or Spanish or music,” VanGilder said. “Then, you interview people based on your topic, you come up with different ideas of things to feature about the topic and you write your story.”
With the submission date approaching, Somogye said the staff would write deadlines on the classroom whiteboard to make sure every section was done by a certain date.
“It was really stressful. We were actually at the school for five hours the night before it was supposed to be submitted, to get the last proofs done,” Somogye said. “It was definitely really stressful, but once I got my last check mark, it was crazy.”
VanGilder said while yearbook is fun, it can be stressful at times, especially when not staying on top of the workload. However, she said organization and communication can solve those problems and that it is a relief to be done.
“When we submitted the yearbook, we all sat around Mrs. Chushuk’s computer, and we put all the pages in there, and then we clicked the upload button, and waited for it to upload,” VanGilder said. “When it uploaded, it was really exciting. It was really real, like we actually finished the book on time. So we celebrated, played ‘Just Dance’ after it was submitted, and did a victory lap around the school.”
The yearbook will be distributed on May 9. VanGilder said she loves the people in the class and the interesting stories she gets to hear through interviews. She said she is proud of the finished product and happy that students will get to see it.
“I’m really excited to see the book when it gets distributed. I hope that everyone really enjoys the theme,” VanGilder said. “I’m excited to see people’s reaction to it, and I’m excited to see everyone’s hard work actually in my hands and all the pages physically there, not just on my computer.”
