Natrona County High raising funds selling archived yearbooks

Already here in the Yearbooks Blog, we’ve passed along stories of schools raising money by selling old yearbooks they have in stock, just collecting dust on the shelves. But so far, we haven’t heard of one quite as successful as the sale at Natrona County High School in Casper, Wyoming.

Natrona County High had yearbooks on the shelves dating back to 1916, and decided to start selling them.

Adviser Lisa Gray had an overstock of old yearbooks going back as far as 1916, and minimal storage to keep them in. Before resorting to recycling the books, the school’s librarians came up with the idea of selling them and advertising the sale in the local Casper newspaper.

They priced the yearbooks at $25 each, and Gray said the response was overwhelming. To date, they have sold more than 170 books to raise more than $4,000.

“I don’t think any of us really expected a huge response, but what we got amazed each one of us,” said Gray. “People from across the country, around the state and from the local and school community jumped on the opportunity to replace lost or damaged books or to purchase them for the first time because they couldn’t while they were in high school.”

Most of the purchases have come locally from Casper, but orders have also come in from around Wyoming, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, Virginia and as far away as Alaska. Some wanted to replace a lost or stolen yearbook, others wanted to find the yearbook of a relative.

“Bringing in over $4,000 to the program, on books that were collecting dust and taking up space, has been a tremendous help,” said Gray. “Who knew there was a pot of gold in all these cardboard boxes?”