A Look At Yearbook

   Every year near the end of school, Granite Bay High School releases its yearbook and students bring it home and browse the pages for hours on end.

   While looking through each page – all of the unique artistic designs and personal quotes from students – you will realize the yearbook contains more than meets the eye.

    Throughout the entire year, there is a whole class filled with students of all ages that devote their time to making the yearbook.

   Jenny Padgett, the yearbook teacher, says the class is almost entirely run by the students.

   “I teach them basic journalistic things… the best way to write a quote, writing good captions and writing good headlines,” Padgett said.

   The way the class is styled works out well because students interact and ask other students for help.

   “My favorite part, hands down, is the brilliance of the staff,” Padgett said.  “I think ‘how did they do that?’, their ideas are so clever and funny.”

   Padgett is not as comfortable with the technology that students use on a daily basis, so she handles the technicalities of the yearbook.

   “I only edit the content and correctness of the yearbook, the designs are all student driven,” Padgett said.

   The yearbook class has five different deadline nights. Each deadline, the yearbook tries to get 80 pages done.

   Normally, the class is laid back, because there is not a set agenda for each day, like a normal class.

   “We come in, hang out for a bit, then we get to work and edit and place pictures,” GBHS freshman Reilly Pleau said.

   “People normally don’t show up till 8,” Cherry said.  “Most people work on their spreads or do homework, depending on the time (until the deadline).”

   Each deadline passed is a reminder of how close the students are to achieving a final product.

   “After a deadline there is a sense of being done, being able to chill for a little bit, especially for the editors,” Padgett said.

   “On the first deadline night we stayed until 2:00 a.m. but since then we usually stay till 11:30,” Cherry said. “It has calmed down a lot since then.”

   There is no doubt that the class can be stressful at times, but like any project, the final product is rewarding.

   “(My favorite part is) completing something that is really big at the school,” Pleau said.

   Yearbook is a great opportunity of a class to take in that it teaches real life experience.  The class environment is like having a job.  Students have specific responsibilities they must uphold. 

   Getting an A might not be the biggest problem to Yearbook students, but students experience stress in different ways.

   “It’s hard to know that if we don’t finish in time, there is no yearbook,” said Cherry.

   As summer is near, the yearbook is too.  The work of the class is coming to a close and they are waiting anxiously to see what the school thinks of it.

   Padgett has been able to give a sneak peek at what is in store for this year’s yearbook.

   “It’s completely different than last yearbook, it has a completely different look and a different cover,” she said.