Students look forward to purchasing the Morgan yearbook every year, also known as The Morgan Tower. A lot of time and effort goes into creating this capstone of our high school memories and events. The Morgan 2024 yearbook staff is led by Library Media Specialist Shannon Robinson and consists of multiple seniors. There are two editors seniors Ainsley Corgan and Anna Fasulo, and staff members seniors Molly Vitola, Ari Salgar, Riley Schmidt, Sophia Caprio, Julia White, Sam Way, Kaylyn DaRos, and Sara Stack.
Yearbook, also known as Tech Integration, requires Intro To Communications as the prerequisite. Intro to Comm gets students comfortable with technology prior to taking Yearbook. Intro to Comm provides experience in the creative designing process, and without any background on the creative designing process, the class is very complex. The company that Morgan uses to create and plan the yearbooks is called Jostens. Josten’s Yearbook Avenue is the site that students use to create the yearbook. On Yearbook Avenue, students see all the pages that will be going into the yearbook. When students are assigned pages (sports, academic, student life, events pages, etc.), those pages become locked, and only the assigned students can work on those pages.
At the beginning of the school year, they go over mini lessons given by Jostens’ yearbook. Mrs. Robinson delivers these lessons, so the yearbook staff is aware of the different aspects and details that each page in the yearbook needs. It also gives the students the ability to know how to write and create specifics such as captions, write-ups, creative headlines, different types of photo styles, which photos to include, and more. Having lessons provides more structure for this class and the creation process.
A normal day in yearbook class looks a little more chaotic than any average class. The students are each assigned to multiple pages, and required to get them done before the next deadline. The timing of each page varies depending on the type of page and topic. The deadline could be any time between a couple of days and a couple of weeks. For example, doing a sports page isn’t as easy as it looks: yearbook staff needs to highlight seniors, create a season write-up, and write picture captions.
When the pages are complete, the creators of the page ask editors Ainsley or Anna to review the page. They examine spelling, grammar, alignment, content, picture choices, and all the small details. This step is an essential part of the yearbook process because once the pages are submitted they can’t make changes. With the goal of this 2024 yearbook staff is to make it the most successful and to have no mistakes, so Ainsley and Anna take their job very seriously.
Senior superlatives are a big part of the yearbook process. While there are about 123 students in the Class of 2024, the yearbook staff is only allowed to showcase 30 seniors for superlatives. Senior editor, Ainsley Corgan, sent out a nomination form to the Class of 2024. On the nomination form, there were categories where students could nominate two students in their class. After the nomination form was reviewed by both editors, the people with the most nominations were then added to a final voting survey. On the final voting sheet, there were about 5 groups of 2 that people could choose from to represent the best example of each category. When the final vote came, we contacted the students who received a superlative but continued to keep the superlative they won a surprise. A couple of days later we asked each of them to come into the Learning Commons with their partner to take a picture for the page. Students decorated or posed as the specific superlative they got. Although some groups could assume which one they won based on their picture and props, the students will find out what superlative they got when the yearbooks come out in the spring. In addition, some students who were nominated for a superlative, but did not receive one, were chosen for our 20 years from now page, representing where they are seen by their classmates or themselves in the future.
Senior wills are a long and difficult process during the creation of a yearbook. During the first week of school, yearbook staff shares a Google form with all seniors. The staff reminds seniors multiple times to complete and submit their senior quotes, wills, and their baby pictures in the Google form. Yearbook staff made sure to set a specific due date for the Google form to make sure they could get them all in at the same time. Getting all the information at the same time makes the process easier. The hardest part of this process was getting all the seniors to submit their information and going through each of the quotes and wills to make sure they were all school-appropriate. An integral part of the process is the supervision meeting with Assistant Principal Chris. Luther gives his stamp of approval.
Mrs. Robinson took over the role of teaching the yearbook in 2013. Mrs. Robinson seems to think that the most difficult part of her job is keeping her staff focused and engaged. Her favorite part of running the yearbook each year is seeing the excitement in the staff when they come up with new designs. Mrs. Robinson states, “The best part is seeing staff take on challenges and overcoming them, specifically when Ari took on the Remember When page this year and seeing her after submitting that page, that was a moment for me because that was a struggle for her because they didn’t want to do it due to not getting enough photo responses, and she persevered and stuck through, and it came out really cool in the end.” The last few pages of the yearbook are submitted in April. After that, the yearbook staff takes on a long-term project. During this time, the current staff will start of the process of creating the next yearbook and laying out a foundation for the next school year. In June, Mrs. Robinson meets with cover artists who work for Jostens to discuss the color scheme, fonts, and Jostens’ cover page, which is all done before leaving for summer vacation.
Another aspect of the yearbook process is ads. The yearbook has two types of ads: senior ads from parents and ads from companies, each displayed at the end of the yearbook. In the first couple days of school, the yearbook girls were each asked to pick three companies to send handwritten letters to, asking for support and asking if they are interested in adding an ad into our 2024 yearbook. Additionally, Mrs. Robinson emailed the Class of 2024 parents, asking if any of them were interested in creating and submitting a senior ad for their child. This section of the yearbook is blocked off for our yearbook staff. Mrs. Robinson does this because all of our staff members are seniors, and the ads are kept as surprises for when the book comes out.
Senior Riley Schmidt has never taken a yearbook prior to this semester. She plays a big role in the yearbook staff by taking photos at many school events. The photos that she takes are then put into an image library in Yearbook Avenue, with the rest of the photos taken, for the students in the class to use. “Going into the second semester, I was able to use the photos I have taken for a lot of different things” said Riley. Through this class, Riley was given a big opportunity by Mrs. Robinson, to enter a contest through Jostens where she was able to submit two specific photos of her choice, If she wins with one of her photos, she will be able to win money for her works.
The yearbook staff puts in a countless amount of effort and thought to make this yearbook capture all the moments for our students. The staff wants students to see themselves and reflect on their time at Morgan. While planning every page, they take into consideration covering all the student body to make everyone feel included and represented throughout the book.
