Just another typical 20-hour yearbook day at CSPA

Our yearbook staff is from Frank W. Cox High School in Virginia Beach, Virginia.  We left for the CSPA conference at 6:30 a.m. on Wednesday from the Norfolk airport and arrived at LaGuardia in New York at approximately 7:45 a.m.

From there, we flagged down two taxis and went to our hotel (Hilton Garden Inn on 48th and 8th Ave).  We were in a rush, trying to avoid the St. Patrick’s Day Parade traffic that would block off 8th Avenue.  Once we checked our bags at the hotel, we purchased subway cards and rode the subway to 116th Street (Columbia University).

Our adviser checked us in at Lerner Hall while we (the staff) looked at the Walsworth display.   We then chose the classes we wished to attend and went our various ways.

The first class we attended was on how to keep your yearbook centered around your theme.  We learned new design ideas that are colorful and unique.  We also got ideas on how to increase coverage by placing folio art with headshots of students next to the page number and inserting a quote next to it.

Next, we attended a class in the Hamilton building about editing, cropping and enhancing photography.  The speaker made a PowerPoint to show the ‘yeses’ vs. the ‘no-no’s’ of photography.  We learned to have action in the picture and leave room for the main focus of the picture to act, run, jump, or just go.

After lunch, my co-editor-in-chief and I taught our class on ‘Diving Headfirst Into Yearbook.’  We explained our situation of how we started the year with seven editors and now we only have four, including the two co-editors-in-chief.  We also explained that our yearbook is an extracurricular activity and not a class and how tough it is to get the yearbook started.  We distributed handouts with examples of body copies that can be written as letters by coaches as well as an example of a staff application. Our class lasted 45 minutes and went very smooth.

After class, we went to the upper level of Lerner Hall to work online with our Walsworth representative to finish our endsheets.  Then, we took the subway back to 53rd street to purchase tickets to the Broadway play Jersey Boys for 8 p.m.

We went back to the hotel, changed clothes, ate dinner and walked to the play.  The energy in Times Square got everyone excited to see the show and the professional theater.  The play was about how a band evolved from nothing to the ‘big time.’

The show ended at 10:45 and then we walked back to the hotel and got into the comfy beds after a 20-hour day.