The "Endless Yearbook Adviser" Story

It was an ordinary day. I had just finished handing out the last of the yearbooks for this year. I taught high school for 32 years and I was the yearbook adviser for 30 of those years. The principal, Mr. Hower, knew who to go to when he needed someone to take an extracurricular position. I had a young and growing family and the extra money was always welcome. At one point I was the yearbook adviser, equipment manager and did the sports laundry, rifle coach and did all the in-house printing for the district. I enjoyed all the positions, but the one that gave me the most exposure to some of the best students in the school was the yearbook job. The art teacher and next door neighbor to my classroom, Jim G., worked with me for most of the 30 years. He handled the layouts and art design and I handled the photography and scheduling. We had a staff of about 12 students each year who produced the book. Usually about 300 pages and in the early years it was in black and white. As prices dropped we started to add color to the book. We had some of the neatest covers over the years. Silk screened designs, lithographs, photographs and embossing were used on the covers. Some of my favorites were the cover that featured Peter Frampton on stage in our auditorium and the 50th Anniversary Edition with the foil embossed cover from a design that we made. What made it more special was my daughter, Brynn, was the Editor of the yearbook that year. Hey, I picked the people!! Both my sons were photographers for the yearbook when they were in high school. I retired in 1999 and with it all the extracurricular positions. I asked the principal at the time, Mr. Hanna, if he wanted me to stay on as the yearbook adviser, since it was hard to find teachers to do some of the big jobs in the school. He preferred to have a current teacher do the job. I could understand the reasoning and I was OK with the decision. The next day I got a call from Dr. R., the principal of the middle school. He had heard that I was no longer going to do the high school yearbook and wanted to know if I was interested in doing the 88 page middle school book. He told me to name my price and if it fit in his budget, I had the job. I picked out a fair price and got the job. My first book was in 2000 and I just finished my 11th middle school book. I do the job myself since the book is mostly class photos. The yearbook publisher, Jostens, has a program called Yearbook Avenue and I take the photos with a digital camera, upload them to the website, and do all the designing on their website. Don't need to store anything on my computer and can access the program from anywhere with my password. I sponsor a cover design contest every year now with the winner getting a photo of themself right inside the cover and a free book. Pretty popular and I get some fantastic designs from kids who are 12 and 13 years old. I'm preparing for next school year already and plan to do the book until they tell me I'm not wanted anymore. Which I'm hoping will be never!! It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.T