The job seemed overwhelming. The class was once a dumping ground. Lying on the floors, escaping for lunch midway through class and only having to take a few pictures each semester was the norm. The class was yearbook and the operation was titanic.
Winter 2000
Is your school nearing its anniversary date? A time to reflect? How about your yearbook? Is it reaching a milestone?
Outside, it was one of those great gifts to humanity – a brisk, colorful, blue-skied fall day in Montana. But inside our stuffy, fluorescent-lit classroom, it felt positively spring-like.
When advisers pull their school’s older yearbooks off the dusty shelves, they are likely to find spreads of photos, many with no cutlines. Few of the pages will even provide a block of copy detailing a school event. Very few of the yearbooks produced 20 or 30 years ago included stories on substance abuse, teen pregnancy or homosexuality. These topics were generally taboo for discussion, let alone potential issues for yearbook coverage. It is not that sensitive issues did not exist, they were just not the subject of routine yearbook coverage.
