Our Year, Their Work By: Maylene Michel

Each year of high school has its ups and downs, and at the end of those four years there is so much to look back on. Facilitating this is a school’s yearbook staff, there to capture it all. Hillgrove High School in particular boasts a professional staff making the end of year nostalgia possible. As stated by The Auburn Plainsman, “The purpose of [a yearbook] is really just to preserve the students’ time… and document the history…, that way when you come back in 30 years, you can see what it was like when you were here,” and Hillgrove does just that. 

A high school yearbook traditionally includes “a few pages for the school administrators, faculty & other staff members, class or student portraits, several pages for clubs, teams or other group photos, a section for special awards & superlatives… and graduating class coverage,” according to Yearbook Life. Yearbooks are nothing new but take a lot more work that one may think. Bella Gallego, a yearbook staff member, exclaims, “Oh, my gosh. Any sports spread… Those are the toughest, especially with the varsity sports, because seniors and upper-class men are never here… so it's so hard to track them down.” Students at Hillgrove additionally appreciate the yearbook staff’s final product knowing that “everything is all student made, so down to the pictures, the writing, the cover, and all the designs are all decided by the staff,” as revealed by the same Bella Gallego; their advisors are solely present for guidance.

Interestingly, at Hillgrove, yearbook is just as much for its staff as it is for the students. Staff member Addison Gorman opens up about a realization that working on the yearbook has given her: “I've, like, seen that… not like everything's, like, about, like, schoolwork and academics… it's made me realize like school isn't, like, as boring as I thought it was. Like, it's actually fun. And, like, we actually have, like a good sense of like unity when it comes to, like, football games and like pep rallies.” Being involved in one’s school to this degree is bound to have benefits. Further, the yearbook staff at Hillgrove enjoys capturing every bit of the school possible, and it’s evident with the work they put in. Yearbook member Ansley Hackey unfolds the staff’s efforts, in that they “try to just get everyone's opinion, good or bad… it is also public and we want people to send in ideas, we post on our Instagram all the time… we also have, like, a whole list of, like, people's names and, like, you, like, check them off once you have them in the book. We try to keep it to, like, one or two times you're mentioned, in it.” Hillgrove makes sure every student gets a chance.

Ultimately, “A yearbook is so much more than a book. It’s a picture book, capturing the action and reaction of the year through photographs. It’s a history book, chronicling significant moments, events and competitions. It’s a reference book, providing a record of students, scores, notable accomplishments and historical changes. And it’s a memory book, recreating the experience of attending your school in words and pictures,” as expressed by Balfour. Yearbooks will forever hold this significance, as Bella Gallego clarifies with, “…especially when you're young like this and maybe sometimes you may not be like, into the memories of the moment because you're thinking about school and stuff like that… I just think it's important that people can have a space where they can look back and look back on the times that they had.” With this, the Hillgrove yearbook prepares for another eventful year!