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Students learn skills for producing yearbooks

Photo by Jonathan Coleman

Concord High student Hannah Templeton, center, was one of nearly 50 high school students to visit Hendrick Motorsports on Monday as part of a Jostens' yearbook seminar.

By Jessica Groover | Independent Tribune

Published: July 29, 2009

CONCORD — Before this week, Mimi Thomas, 15, was stressed about finding a theme and using it in her school's yearbook that she is co-editing this year. Now, the junior at East Mecklenburg High School in Charlotte has found a new theme and cannot wait to put it all together.

Thomas was one of more than 290 advisers and yearbook staff members who attended Jostens Yearbook Workshop in Concord from Sunday through Tuesday.

There, students and advisers from middle school, high school and college yearbook staffs attended classes on writing, editing, design, photography and business.

Thomas and her co-editor, Jordan Arey, 17, enjoyed attending sessions on subjects such as design and marketing their yearbook to students.

"The focus is a lot on the pictures because they are worth a lot more," Thomas said. "(Students) are going to want to see themselves (in the yearbook)."

The photographers were busy at work on Monday at Hendrick Motorsports, where they snapped pictures of a pit crew and subjects inside the gift shop. Hands-on experiences like this were appealing to students like Khadejeh Nikouyeh, 16, a junior at East Davidson High School in Thomasville.

"(The workshop) has been really exciting," Nikouyeh said. "I didn't realize I would learn so much."

Some of the professionals who taught the classes at the yearbook workshop said it was a great learning experience for them as well.

"When you get to be a journalist, it's easy to become cynical," said Mike McLean, a freelance photojournalist. "When you work with the kids, you reconnect with that drive and passion. It's an equal exchange. We bring experience, and they bring enthusiasm."

As staffs from schools across seven states were able to interact with each other, the members and advisers also received advice from their peers.

"We've worked a little bit with another middle school, giving each other tips on design, how to edit, and comparing theme and layout," said Adrianne Rowe, the yearbook adviser at Martin Middle School in Raleigh. "That's one great thing about yearbook. We all collaborate."

For someone like Rowe, who had no prior experience in publishing a yearbook, attending the workshop was extremely helpful.

Whether they gained the most knowledge from the classes or the interactions with other yearbook staffs, workshop attendees agreed they feel more prepared to put together their yearbooks when school starts.

"I think we'll go back and take better pictures now," said Brittney Monteith, 17, the photography editor for the R-S Central High School yearbook in Rutherfordton, N.C. "It will make this yearbook better than it has ever been."