Clarke Central High School Yearbook Club president Stella Smalling, a junior, works on the 2026 Gladius Yearbook in Room 154 on April 17. The 2025-26 yearbook started at $75 at the beginning of the spring semester, and increased to $100 as time went on. “(The beginning of spring semester) is when I really recommend people actually get the yearbook, and we try to push out that information as much as we can, because the price is the lowest,” Smalling said. Photo by Izzy Hammock
The 2025-26 CCHS yearbook, themed “Metro Magazine,” is available to CCHS students and faculty due to the Yearbook Club’s year-long journey of design and curation.
Although the Clarke Central High School Yearbook Club’s location in Room 154 of the first floor’s North Wing is tucked away and unassuming, the effort that the club’s staff puts into designing and compiling content for the yearbook extends across a multitude of areas.
Spearheaded by its Editor-in-Chief Stella Smalling, a junior, the CCHS Yearbook Club staff of eight students fulfills responsibilities that include facilitating school portraits, designing page layouts, conducting interviews and polls and photographing daily CCHS life. They are also responsible for choosing the yearbook theme, with this year’s motif of “Metro Magazine” drawing inspiration from early 2000s designs of the fashion-focused Seventeen Magazine.
“(Working on the yearbook) allows me to be curious and just observe everything around me. At social events, (we’re) seeing, ‘Oh, what’s the vibe? How are we going to display this energy or this spirit of the Class of 2026?’” Smalling said. “It’s doing that based on experience and how other people react. This sort of thing does very much build your intuition.”
““(Working on the yearbook) allows me to be curious and just observe everything around me. At social events, (we’re) seeing, ‘Oh, what’s the vibe? How are we going to display this energy or this spirit of the Class of 2026?’”
— Stella Smalling,
Gladius Yearbook Editor-in-Chief
CCHS Yearbook Club adviser and Career, Technology and Agricultural Education department teacher Nestor Domingo handles the club’s logistical aspects, such as school funding and portrait coordination with DSI Photography, which allows Smalling and the rest of the club to focus on creativity.
“(My favorite part of being yearbook advisor is) empowering students to build and design a publication from scratch. (I’m) proud that each group has used the opportunity to create something personal and unique,” Domingo said.
Clarke Central High School Yearbook Club president Stella Smalling, a junior, displays the cover art for the 2026 Gladius Yearbook onApril 17. Smalling’s staff was limited in number this year, but she looks forward to more team members next year.I know that we’re going to have a higher volume of staff members (next year, so) I will have to change the system in place to accommodate a larger group,” Smalling said. “The anticipation is creeping (closer) every day.” Photo by Izzy Hammock
Currently, the students work on the Yearbook Club’s staff and are divided across two class periods. For Smalling, future opportunities of the club include being able to split responsibilities across a larger number of participating students.
“Every year we struggle to get club pictures, (because) we only have eight people. I know that we’re going to have a higher volume of staff members (next year, so) I will have to change the system in place to accommodate a larger group,” Smalling said. “The anticipation is creeping (closer) every day.”
