BSM’s yearbook staff reflects on their experience
It takes time and creative skill to craft the yearbook.
The yearbook is an integral part of every high school experience. Each year, students eagerly wait for their yearbooks, taking time to preserve memories by having friends and teachers sign them. From a typical student’s point of view, the yearbook is a nice memento from their high school years, but for the students who work to create the yearbook (self-titled “yerds”), the yearbook is the product of a lot of time and effort. And even though it is only halfway through the school year, the yearbook is almost done being created.
The 2017 yearbook editors, seniors Maddie Stoks, Claire Van der Heide, and Paige Greeley, started their hard work this past summer by going to a yearbook workshop and collaborating with Jostens to think of this year’s yearbook theme. The yearbook is usually completed by the end of January, and then the staff starts working on the Spring Supplement, which is all of the spring sports and activities that couldn’t be incorporated into the regular yearbook because of the deadline. Each person is assigned to make at least five pages, while editors make around fifteen each.
Many might not know that yearbook is a class of its own at BSM, with around twenty students on the roster. “I really like how yearbook is a class. It’s fun having people from different grades coming together to socialize and have fun, as well as being able to look at the whole student body,” Van der Heide said.
Students who take yearbook often find it to be a comfortable level of work. “I’d say it’s pretty easy, unless you get behind or don’t meet your deadlines, then the editors get mad. It’s also more fun and entertaining than other classes, and it’s nice having an end result to look back on,” sophomore Liv Schmitz said.
One of the more difficult parts of yearbook is learning how to use the InDesign program, which is the software the group uses to create the yearbook. “I have accidently deleted the whole yearbook twice––once when I was a sophomore so I was really scared, but it was ok we got it back like a week later,” Stoks said.
Because of the hardworking and creative environment that yearbook provides, the community within its members has remained tightly knit. The popular yearbook term “yerds” is seen in the school community both on social media and throughout the yearbook. “Yerds means yearbook nerd, it is a legacy that must live on, #yerdsforlife,” Stoks said.
