Wednesday, February 18, 2004
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Wednesday, February 18, 2004 |
FCHS staff teaches U.S. schools how to do BIG yearbooks rightBy J. FRANK LYNCH What Valdosta High School is to football, Fayette County High School is to yearbooks. Travel around the nation to hang out with yearbook “people” and they will know Fayette County High’s “Golden Memories.” This book is not just big, but it has a big reputation to go with it. The nation’s three main collegiate journalism societies have lauded “Golden Memories” and its advisor, Penny Pridgeon, with a string of honors and awards for more than a decade. The 2001 edition, at nearly 500 pages, was the largest high school yearbook ever produced — in the nation. It weighed nearly seven pounds per book. It arrived on two loaded tractor-trailer trucks. The 2003 edition of “Golden Memories” pales in comparison, at just 432 pages and barely six pounds. But it achieved the highest honors yet for Fayette County High, being named “Best Yearbook in the U.S.” by the American Scholastic Press Association, as well as winning an award for “Best Advertising Section.” The 2003 book, at 432 pages one of the largest high school yearbooks in the nation, also received a gold medal from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association and a superior rating from the Georgia Scholastic Press Association. All the awards are taken in stride by the 20 or so staffers who toll away daily to produce one of America’s biggest yearbooks, working out of a suite of offices inside the FCHS main building complete with about 20 Macintosh computers outfitted with the latest Adobe design and photo editing software. Pridgeon is quick to point out that all the “extras” are funded by the annual staff. The class gets no additional money from the school board. That’s why the cost of the book, base price $60 and climbing as the school year advances, continues to rise. It will cost $116,000 just to print the 2004 edition, a slim 416-pager that gets shipped off to the publisher this month. “This is the first year we’ve been 100 percent digital,” Pridgeon said proudly. “But we’re having trouble getting the pages sent out on the Internet.” A batch of completed pages ready for plating that went out the day before Christmas break came back after New Year’s, she said. But that’s nothing compared to how far the process has come since Pridgeon took over in 1987. Nearly from that first edition, “Golden Memories” has been on the radar scope, winning awards and racking up accolades for innovations that are now industry norm. Student-dominated advertising, for example. And full-process color throughout. And the latest: A CD-ROM supplement that was so impressive to the folks at Jostens, the nation’s largest yearbook publisher, they solicited Pridgeon and her charges to write the “how to” book for other schools wanting to do it themselves. Editor Sara Keene, a senior who’s spent all four years of high school working toward this moment, carefully oversees the final design and photo selection of the 2004 book. The daughter of a high school yearbook advisor at another school in another county, Keene is torn about the prospects of moving out into a world where yearbooks, in all honesty, just aren’t that big a deal. After all, “Golden Memories” already ranks bigger and better than most big college yearbooks, Pridgeon said. “I think what makes our book special is that it’s classy and traditional, but it’s also modern and not afraid to try new things,” said Keen. “We stick with what we know.” Just one thing irks Pridgeon, year after year: The volume number. The 2004 book will be labeled “Volume 54,” since the original Fayette County High yearbook was published in 1950. But “Volume 1” was actually called “Golden Memory,” she said. “It was the first one, so it wasn’t until the next year they started calling it ‘Golden Memories’,” said Pridgeon. That oversight doesn’t seem to bother the judges.
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