Dea Pool, Career, Technical and Agricultural department teacher and yearbook adviser, works with yearbook member and junior Dylan Gavron on designing a sports spread in the 2016-17 Gladius. Pool wants this yearbook to be memorable for years after high school.“I’ve heard some criticism about there’s too much writing, not enough pictures,” Pool said. “But, when you’re 40, 50 years old, way down the line, and you’re looking at your yearbook from way back when, you’re not going to remember anything that was happening in those pictures without the captions, the explanations, the stories.” Photo by Kiki Griffin.
By JURNEE LOUDER – Print Variety Editor
The Clarke Central High School yearbook staff begins production during the summer and works to finish by March to make the yearbook as memorable as possible.
During all four lunches, members of the Clarke Central High School yearbook staff can be seen selling yearbooks for $65. Throughout the day, members can also be seen with their cameras, taking photos that capture the life of CCHS’s staff and students. This process of documenting a year of high school takes months.
Starting in the summer, the staff meets to discuss their plans for the upcoming year. During these meetings, the staff chooses a theme, determines which areas of the school will be covered and learns the process of making the Gladius, the CCHS yearbook. Yearbook staffers will also be assigned different sections of the school to cover.
“Based on preferences and experience, we’ll choose photographers, reporters and we’ll choose designers,” CCHS Career, Technical and Agricultural department teacher and yearbook adviser Dea Pool said. “Once everybody has their role, out of each group, you’re assigned either the athletic section, the student life section or whatever section you might be covering. So, you really have to think throughout the year what areas to cover from there.”
After determining the proficiency of each staffer, members learn more about the process of creating a yearbook. The staff will look at student award-winning yearbooks for inspiration. Newer members learn the ropes of design, reporting and photography from veterans of the program.
“We do a lot of teaching, especially because even if you have skill in photography when you come in, photography in general is different from the specialized athletic photography or maybe portraiture, all the different little areas within, (and) you really do need to have a bit more background on Adobe InDesign, and Illustrator and Photoshop,” Pool said.
As a student life photographer for the yearbook, sophomore Marissa Goodwin is responsible for capturing the experience of students, whether that be in a parade in Downtown Athens or students in the CCHS cafeteria.
“I actually had little experience with photography prior to joining yearbook. The only knowledge I had was with what I taught myself using my first (Digital Single-Lens Reflex) camera I received for Christmas in seventh grade,” Goodwin said. “When yearbook actually started though, I was given the best training by one of the best photographers I know.”
Working with other seasoned photographers along with taking an Intro to Graphics and Design course helped Goodwin refine the skills required to be on yearbook.
“I took Intro to Graphics and Design my freshman year, and I decided to take another graphics course this year. While I’m not physically designing the book, I think the class helped me to appreciate the aesthetic appeal of things, which improved my photography skills,” Goodwin said.
After students are assigned their sections, the yearbook staff works on covering events throughout the year. By each deadline, which are scattered throughout the year, the yearbook staff will have to submit a total of 40 pages.
“The whole yearbook needs to be finished in March, which is kind of unfortunate because a lot of events get left out, like prom and all the sporting events that happen after March. So, we have a hard time covering spring sports,” Pool said.
Regardless of issues with the final deadline, Pool is excited about this year’s yearbook.
“We can’t give away too much about the yearbook. Right now, we’re working on a lot of different angles, especially because this is the first year the construction is almost finished,” Pool said. “So finally, we’re in a new space and we just want to cover how students are enjoying this space. We’ve got this champion attitude as well, so that will be involved.”
Goodwin believes students have a lot to look forward to aesthetically in this yearbook issue.
“I like the concept of our new yearbook, and our designers make the book worth looking at. The spreads are very eye catching this year,” Goodwin said.
Senior Skylar Lehman, the Editor-in-Chief of the yearbook staff, echoes Goodwin’s sentiment and says that the staff is focusing a lot of attention to graphics this issue.
“Knowing this is my last year, I want to make this book the best yet. It has been a real motivator to want to see my name in the yearbook as Editor-in-Chief and have people say it looks great,” Lehman says.
