Just as postcards offer a glimpse into where the sender was at a particular time or place, yearbooks offer a glimpse into a high school’s school year.
The 2021-22 Pampa High School Yearbook will do just that when it comes out next month and will be the culmination of more than a year’s work by the yearbook staff.
Editor-in-chief Jose Lerma Montes said the decision for the post-card theme didn’t happen overnight.
“First and foremost I wanted something that was never done before but I didn’t know if it would be a Pampa theme or a some trending designs,” Lerma Montes said. “I asked the senior editors what they wanted and they said they wanted a Pampa theme. None of the cover ideas seemed original and by the end of the summer we had nothing.”
Over the summer, Lerma Montes had gone to Arizona and bought a Route 66 postcard at a gas station.
“That (which I kept in my room) postcard was a great memory of my time there,” Lerma Montes said. “One day before the school year started, when I was frustrated about the cover, I looked around my room for inspiration and found the postcard.”
Lerma Montes then grabbed some paper and sketched an idea for the yearbook cover.
“The cover and theme were basically the same,” Lerma Montes said. “The cover was a postcard, and the theme was a look into Pampa High School as if you were a visitor.”
The cover will also have a 3D visual within the letters of the cover, leading to a back-and-forth between Josten’s and the yearbook staff.
Lerma Montes, has been involved with yearbook for two years and got involved with his friend Bryson Hood, who was the editor-in-chief last year.
“I was very involved with extra-curricular activities and that’s very important when it comes to getting pictures and quotes from students, and writing stories,” Lerma Montes said.
Lerma Montes said the best part about being on Yearbook is capturing students’ memories throughout the school year.
“It may seem like a cliché, but it’s a great feeling to be able to put these images, stories and quotes in a book that people can keep for a lifetime,” Lerma Montes said. “But I also like the design aspect. As difficult as it can be, it’s really satisfying when it all comes together. While making the book I learned that I am a very detail oriented person, so I wanted everything to look perfect. That was a blessing and a curse because although the book turned out how I wanted it, we got behind several times trying to achieve perfection.”
Yearbook advisor Zachary Green said he was proud of the work put in by Lerma Montes.
“It’s very rare for somebody to go from just a staff member in one year, and then be the editor the next year,” Green said. “Every single year (I’ve been doing yearbook five years), we had returning editors. So they had experience and knew what was going on. But Jose stepped up and did a good job.”
The yearbook staff lost all of their editors and several staff members going into the 2021-22 school year, setting up a recruitment period.
“We tried to recruit some other students, they were going to help but they decided they had too many classes/extra-curriculars,” Green said. “It left us really short-handed. So we had a lot of new people.”
This year’s book was more of a challenge to put together as a large majority of the staff was new and needed trained.
“We had to teach them to take pictures, edit pages and communicate with staff,” Lerma Montes said. “That may not seem too difficult, but my standard for the yearbook was high and I took on an enormous responsibility.
“I’m also involved other extra-curriculars, organizations and advanced classes so my time is limited and it made it hard to complete the templates for each deadline.”
Lerma Montes and Green both noted that despite the inexperience from the staff, they were pivotal in getting the project done.
“If we didn’t have them, it wouldn’t have been finished as quick as we got it done,” Lerma Montes said. “Small details such as tagging pictures (to get page numbers for everyone in the index) is important. We try to get every single person in the yearbook three times.”
Green added the staff outsold previous years in ads.
In the previous three years, yearbook staff has sold $7,050 (2020), $12,165 (2021) and this year $16,964. Book sales has also increased each of the three years at 271 (2020), 316 (2021) and 350-plus in 2022.
Yearbook planning has already started for the 2022-23 school year, with the cover deadline set in September. After school starts, yearbook staff starts selling ads for the yearbook.
“The ads and book sales is what we need to continue to make great covers like this year’s,” Green said. “Some schools do just a plain cover with the logo. We don’t want to do that. We want it to be good. It takes about $30,000 to print the book. We also do full color, it all adds up.”
Templates are made early on so the staff knows exactly what they need for each page.
This year’s class had 28 students by the end, but around 35 contribute throughout the year. As deadlines got closer, some even had to come during spring break to help with the yearbook.
“We had about 10 students come and give up time during spring break,” Green said. “Even the underclassmen joined in to help the seniors.”
Serving on the yearbook staff offers students a wide range of skills to learn that could help them in the future. In the case of Lerma Montes, who plans to go to law school, he has been able to communicate and take on some leadership.
“I had to go take pictures and get quotes,” Lerma Montes said. “So I had to communicate better. Also, it helped me be a leader because they were all new.”
May 13 is the last day to pre-order books and May 18 is the expected day for books to be available. The yearbook staff stresses the importance of pre-ordering, as books are first-come-first-serve when supplies are available.
“The only way to guarantee a book is to pay it in full by May 13,” Green said.
Pre-order is available through e-mailing Zachary Green at zachary.green@pampaisd.net or the Josten’s website www.jostensyearbooks.com or https://bit.ly/3LMGVN1 (direct link).
The yearbook staff would like to thank photographers Charla Shults, Carter Pirtle, Della Moyer and Nikki Shelton for their contributions in the Pampa High School Yearbook.
