Throughout the entire school year, the Pasco High School yearbook is made by students to highlight what our school was like this year and to preserve the history of Pasco High School and the students who attend the school.
The yearbook staff highlight what is going on at Pasco in the year that each book is made to emphasize the uniqueness of every year. Ms. Vidrio, the PHS Yearbook advisor, said, “This particular year, we have highlighted the big changes that are happening within the district.”
At the beginning of the year, each student gets a binder with worksheets and notes that are filled out to walk them through the different components of creating the yearbook. Ms. Vidrio stated, “We talk about theme, we talk about graphic design, we talk about photography. We talk about how we structure a yearbook, all of that happens at the beginning of the year.” If a student were to join the class in either trimester two or trimester three, they would be assigned a job immediately and become a specialist in that job instead of learning everything before starting, so they can get started working on the yearbook as soon as possible.
Ms. Vidrio said, “For example, if they specialize in photography, we just teach them everything about photography and they pick up graphic design and everything else along the way.”
After the “orientation” phase, the yearbook staff get to work over many months. Students, go around the building taking pictures, interviews, and in class are designing pages and developing new concepts to use in the book, while the editors keep tabs on everyone and help them if it is needed. On a normal day of class, the students are doing numerous different tasks in class and around the school. However, before all of the yearbook staff start their daily tasks, they have a meeting at the beginning of class.
Ms. Vidrio says, “We start with a staff meeting and we talk about where we are in the process of making the yearbook, and then we talk about event coverage, so if there are games, we talk about who is covering those events and who is going to photograph those events. Then, we break into individual tables, and we start working on our pages. Students then go to interview if they need to go interview, and photograph if they need to photograph.”
Outside of school, the yearbook staff has many responsibilities. They have to go to sporting events, home games, and away games, and other before and after school events, such as prom or homecoming, and more.
Leah Loera, editor in chief of the yearbook, said, “We go to events, and we take pictures, we interview, some of us have gone to the booth building and took pictures of the tree walk, it’s pretty cool.”
The person who makes sure there is someone at every event is the co-editor-in-chief, Wendy Mercado. “I keep track, in a notebook, with all of our events down in there, and I make sure I have people to go out and shoot those.”
To edit the yearbook, they use a computer program called eDesign. It is a hybrid of a graphic design program and a photo uploader, so they upload photos taken at events and use them in the program to create the different pages. Leah stated, “If they are already done, then we put them into proof, which means that they are ready to be looked over and then pre-submit, which is double-checking that ‘Are you sure you want to submit this?'”
Throughout the year, there are multiple deadlines, including one during trimester three, which is submitting the completed yearbook to the company that prints it. Although the yearbook may be finished, the students are still busy with work. This year, they have been tasked by administrators to create a couple of awards, so they are researching specific people being given awards and designing a plaque for the awards.
In addition to that, they work on a supplement. Ms. Vidrio stated, “The supplement is that insert that goes at the end of the yearbook, and it’s usually springtime events. So that’s every 15 minutes, prom, the car show, graduation, all of those events go into a supplement that gets stuck inside your yearbook, and people pick that up mid-July usually.”
That is not everything they do. The students work on the yearbook capstone to help them plan for next year’s theme, which they present. The classes also reflect on what could have made the yearbook experience better and easier in the past year, so they don’t run into the same issues.
