A group of Kent students have firsthand knowledge of what it’s like to be in the publishing industry.
Heartburn, deadlines and all.
“The hard part was figuring out who had what jobs,” said Jessie O’Hara, 15, who last year shared the honor of being the Mill Creek Middle School yearbook editor with her friend Keliesha Lovelace, 14.
“I’m a bossy person,” Lovelace said, explaining her take-charge personality put her in the whip-cracking position, ensuring the work got done.
Together, the two managed an editorial staff of their classmates, doling out assignments, setting deadlines and above all, making sure everyone was staying on task.
And with guidance from their advisor, teacher Nicole Yemothy, the two editors and their staff didn’t just turn out a good yearbook.
They created a great yearbook.
Good enough, in fact, to earn a certificate of recognition from Taylor Publishing, the outfit that published their tome of class memories.
Mill Creek’s Oscars/Hollywood-themed yearbook wound up nabbing an honorable mention in Taylor Publishing’s 2010 “Yearbook Yearbook,” a compilation of the top yearbooks in the country.
“Your outstanding work will be appreciated five, 10, 15 years from now when pages are flipped and stories are told,” “Yearbook Yearbook” Editor Mary Scoggins wrote in Taylor’s letter to the Mill Creek yearbook class. “Taylor Publishing proudly honors the best of the best in ‘Yearbook Yearbook,’ and journalists across the nation will appreciate your stellar work as they make plans for their 2011 book.”
Yemothy, now overseeing the staff for this year’s tome, expressed pride in what her staff accomplished the previous year.
“We’re so ecstatic,” she said. “This was our first color yearbook.”
Overseeing the creative content of the book was one challenge – every page had to have some element of spoofing on the movies and the Oscars.
Getting every Mill Creek kid featured in the darned thing was another.
With a student body of nearly 800, the job called for plenty of coordination, so that photographers weren’t getting the same students in every shot. It was a big deal to make sure that everybody – even the quieter kids who didn’t always stand out – got their time in the yearbook spotlight.
Yemothy explained that if a kid agreed to buy a yearbook – than they were going to be in that yearbook.
“Eighty percent were pictured at least twice,” she said.
Staff had its work cut out for it, finding enough movies to use as a theme throughout the book.
O’Hara and Lovelace said they spoofed about 78 movies in the book.
Titles ranged from “Look Who’s Barking” (in keeping with the Mill Creek bulldog mascot theme) to “Weekend with Bulldogs.”
For O’Hara and Lovelace, both of whom are now students at Kent-Meridian High School, the toughest part was in the management of staff. Making sure your classmates are staying on task isn’t always easy to do.
“For a while I kind of freaked out about, ‘what will the others think,’” O’Hara said, grinning over Lovelace’s fearlessness when it came to getting people to work. “She didn’t quite care as much (about that) as I did.”
Lovelace smiled, noting she just took it in stride.
“I was really mean,” she said.
Although their reign at Mill Creek is over, last year’s yearbook staff did bequeath a legacy to the next generation of yearbook editors this year.
The theme.
It’ll be computers, in keeping with the fact all of Mill Creek’s students have school laptops this year.
And maybe another honor through their yearbook publishing company.
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