Yearbook staff members publish, preserve memories

Cape Girardeau Central High School yearbook editor Ashley Newell was watching a student use the Internet when she saw a galaxy and realized the universe is limitless.

"I thought, oh my gosh, that will be perfect," Newell said, explaining the source of her idea for the 2014-2015 yearbook theme, "The Sky Is Not the Limit."

Using Cape Girardeau's original spelling, the publication has always been called The Girardot, and the six staff members work daily with Newell and faculty sponsor Jessica Muckerman-Presson to meet the deadlines by which the book will be delivered next fall.

"We're going beyond what we usually do," the editor said. "The cover will focus on the sky and galaxy and have a new texture."

She said staff members are constantly using their Canon cameras and writing down what students say. The Girardot will include all 1,100 of Central's ninth- through 12th-grade students, limited to three photos apiece except for those involved in multiple sports and other activities.

Jackson High School yearbook adviser Kara Cracraft laughs with students during an interviewing exercise Nov. 12. (Glenn Landberg)

The staffers have one 45-minute yearbook class a day, but they also are working at home -- a pace that will quicken as the end of May approaches.

"I feel like communication is a big key," Newell said. "I listen to everyone's ideas and make sure they stay on task with the writing, photography and pages."

The yearbook costs $65, or $70 with the student's name on the cover, parts of which will be raised, Muckerman-Presson said. The publisher is the Jostens Co. School colors are orange and black.

"Everyone really liked Ashley's idea, and the theme will be carried throughout the 220-page book," the teacher said.

Other staffers are business manager Sabrina Sander and reporter-photographers Kasarah Chamberlain, Zionna Mehalopolous, Zaire Brown and Korinne Pye.

"We think about the present and future -- what they want now and what they'll want when they get the books out for a reunion," Muckerman-Presson said. "We're looking for that balance."

Last year's staff won first place for the theme "Out With the Old and In With the New" and second for sports photography in October at the Southeast Missouri Student Press Association's "J-Day" at Southeast Missouri State University.

She said she will appoint the next editor in the spring and looks "for someone who is involved and dedicated and can work with the staff, offering little ideas like, 'Why don't we try this or move this picture here?'

"It's really fun. Part of the job is that we get to be so creative. If we want to do something, we can make it happen."

The Jackson High School yearbook, the Silver Arrow, dates to 1923, when it was more like a scrapbook, and the 2014-2015 hardback version will evoke some of that history while recording the faces and events of the school year.

Faculty sponsor Kara Cracraft said her 18-member staff has been at work on the 224-page volume since last summer, when key staffers attended a regional seminar in St. Louis with representatives of the publisher, Jostens Inc. of Bloomington, Minnesota.

Scheduled to be delivered next fall, the book is $65 through December, when the price will increase to $75, Cracraft said. Educating sophomores, juniors and seniors, the school has about 1,200 students.

Cracraft said the book will make liberal use of Jackson's colors, black and red.

"'A throwback' is what the kids are calling it.

"Our theme is 'Reviewing History,' and we're still working on the art for the cover. It will have the new school alongside a photo of the school from the 1930s or '40s."

Cracraft said yearbooks have increasing historical relevance, anyway, showing as they do the fashions, cars and other characteristics of the years they cover, so next year's Silver Arrow will double that with the evocation of its origins.

"People may not look at them very often, but every now and then, like before reunions, they get them out and go over them," she said.

Student leaders include editor Zoe Wren, co-managing editors Hannah Jemison and Jessica Rudolph, people and student life editor Ashlee Cobb and business manager Kaylynn James.

Wren said she got the idea for the theme when watching her brother drink a Mountain Dew. The drink had a label like the original cans, depicting a man in a black slouch hat and a checked suit sipping from a jug.

"I thought, you know what, I could do something like that for the yearbook," Wren said.

She said her mom, Dee, herself a Jackson graduate, liked the idea, as did her staff members, so they went forward with it.