For the first time in 16 years, Legacy yearbook staff finished the yearbook before the end of the school year. After switching publishing companies, they moved from a fall delivery to spring delivery so students could pick up their books before summer break rather than during back-to-school registration.
Seniors got their yearbooks at the senior barbecue and yearbook signing party May 9, and grades 9-12 got yearbooks during MacBook turn in May 22.
“What made us decide to switch to a spring delivery was so seniors could get the book,” senior editor in chief Kendall Warren said. “It’s going to be fun to see everybody’s reaction to something new. I can be a normal senior and not have to come back to finish the book. I can just finish like everybody else.”
In previous years, yearbook staff came back after the school year to finish the yearbook, which sometimes harmed relationships within the staff when people didn’t come back to finish the yearbook, and others had to do their work for them.
“I like that at the end of the year I get to have positive relationships with my students,” Legacy adviser Cherié Burgett said. “There have been many times that kids I’ve had for four years who were my closest students got burned out at the end and sort of stopped coming, then never spoke to me again. I think it’s because they were embarrassed that they slacked off their senior year and didn’t finish, and so now, we get to finish that book and just enjoy that relationship at the end.”
While students do get yearbooks earlier than years past, there are some differences in the book. The end of spring sports, the actual prom dance and graduation are not covered in the yearbook due to publishing deadlines. As a way to combat that, Talon magazine published prom and senior issues which also included spring sports. They also upped their social media coverage on StaleyNews.
“While we did cover all the spring sports, the ends of their seasons won’t be in there, graduation won’t be in there, we weren’t able to make prom in there. That’s why we did the senior issue, to cover everything that wasn’t in the book,” senior editor in chief Ali Schulz said.
The yearbook is a historical record of a school year. For 16 years, Burgett and her students have worked to make each and every book thorough, which hasn’t changed for this year. They actually put more hours of work in this year to meet the earlier deadlines, including Burgett, who logged in a total of 1,289 hours and 40 minutes in the yearbook software compared to 797 hours and 7 minutes the previous year. And they are happy with the way the book turned out.
“The photography is beautiful,” Burgett said. “We had some fantastic photographers this year, and the colors are gorgeous. Once we saw it, it just pops. It’s also very meaningful. This year, the toughest part was, they were well into creating the book, and we had multiple tragedies happen in our student body. They basically had to stop and rethink because every yearbook has a theme. And our theme was more positive and upbeat, but they felt that didn’t fit the way the year was going. As you know we lost a couple students, we had a shooting, and multiple things happened, and so they midyear changed the theme. That was tough, but I think in the end they’re happy they did it.”
The yearbook staff sold 925 copies of the “One Falcon, One Family”-themed Legacy yearbook.
