Photo by: Will Gentry
The school year is quickly coming to a close, which means many students will graduate and leave their responsibilities and positions open for others to fill.
According to the yearbook advisor Amanda Watson, this is also the case for the staff of Oklahoma Christian University’s yearbook, The Aerie.
Watson said high school yearbooks are mostly composed of student pages that cover things such as who students sat with at lunch or who participated in what organizations.
“Here, we have student pages, but we really try to cover what happens at OC throughout the year,” Watson said. “Everything from student activities to the dinners that they have for the board of trustees, really just trying to archive everything.”
Junior and yearbook editor Andrew Dixon has been on The Aerie staff for three years. Dixon said they have been striving to add more applicable things in the yearbook.
“Certain yearbooks put the same things in it every year and nothing changes,” Dixon said. “In our book this year, we’re going to have an Inauguration spread, which is specific to this year. We have the blurbs, which are in the student section, that will cover things like Duck Chapel and Brandon Weeden chapel.”
Dixon said that yearbooks are great for current students, but they are also great to have for looking back at old memories in the years to come.
“One of the things I know we’ve done more this year and last year versus previous years is that we have captions on the pictures,” Dixon said. “For a while we had pictures in the yearbook, but it didn’t tell you who was in the picture. Last year, we added the captions.”
Sophomore Melanie Sharbine has only been on staff for two years and has no regrets thus far.
“I’ve really enjoyed working on the yearbook staff,” Sharbine said. “Working with the yearbook hasn’t been too difficult. I guess it’s been really different because I did high school yearbook, and a high school yearbook is much different than a college yearbook.”
According to Sharbine, she hopes to become more involved and dedicated to The Aerie in future years.
“I really like how this year we’re adding modules in the part where we’re having quotes, and I hope that in the future we’ll continue adding student quotes and little fun pieces,” Sharbine said. “I really enjoy getting to look at all the pictures and getting to see people I wouldn’t ordinarily get to see. So, it’s been nice.”
Among all of the changes made in and to the yearbook, one change in particular could appeal more directly to students.
“The yearbooks used to be included in the student fees and something that we changed is giving the students a voice,” Watson said. “Now we give them the choice to whether they want to buy them or not.”
According to Watson, the students may not care about the yearbooks now but they might wish they had one 10 years down the road.
“I’ve been going through old yearbooks looking for some pictures, and it really is cool to go back and look at this stuff,” Watson said. “My brothers are older than me, and I found pictures from when they went to school here.”
There are several people graduating who work on the staff, so multiple positions have opened up for the next school year.
“Sometimes we just need people on staff to do all the contacting,” Watson said. “It’s a lot of gathering pictures and contacting people to get quotes and to get information about different pages. But, we also need people who know about Photoshop, different design programs, and we need photographers.”
Though students can’t receive credit for working for The Aerie, hard work and dedication pays off.
“There is some scholarship with it,” Watson said. “It’s just a work-based scholarship. You get the scholarship based on the work that you do.”
Dixon said they put a lot of time and effort into the yearbook, and they appreciate everyone that buys it.
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