Reminiscing the good times - dig out that old yearbook
Yearbooks—do you have yours, do you ever look at it and reminisce? My high school graduating class from Ogallala recently had our 60th class reunion. There were 101in our class, forty have passed away but thirty one were able to attend. Several had conflicts and couldn’t come this time. We have had reunions every five years since 1965 except the CoVid year. We discussed that maybe we shouldn’t wait another five years and have one in two years when most everyone will turn 80.
The reason I bring up the subject of yearbooks is because at the reunion that book was referred to several times. When a person was not recognized right way their name might hurriedly be looked up in the book to match long ago faces with the faces of those in 2025. During the evening those books were used to look up who, what, where and when things took place those many years ago. Pictures of teachers who are no longer with us but well remembered and visited about. Sometimes if a classmate hadn’t attended for awhile and their appearance had changed drastically the book was very helpful. People change; hair color, balding, weight gain etc. Those pictures bring us right back to those years of going to school with classmates, several of us had been together since kindergarten.
When I worked at the high school here in Grant I was the yearbook adviser for fourteen years from 1995 to 2008. I always thought of a yearbook like a history book of sorts. A history of each school year. First of all I ask student if they would like to help with a book. Since I was the office secretary I did not have a class so when I got a group of interested students I asked what role they would like to be in, for example being an activity photographer, selling the books to students as there was no on-line ordering then, getting money from area businesses for adds, working on the one computer during their study hall or after school, creating the cover of the book, taking candid pictures, helping with concession stands to raise money to support the book. There were several students who were always willing to take on these roles. One of the first decisions was to pick a theme, that was always fun and set a tone for the book. One year they picked movie titles or song titles that were popular at the time to match up with a sport or activity such as Chariots of Fire for the Cross Country team, Unnecessary Roughness for the football team, Dazed and Confused for graduation, Basic Training for weights class, Caddy Shack for golf etc.
Another way those students helped out was we held a Penny Carnival one year in the Pritchett gym, we had a raffle of a hammock, bake sale of cakes and a 50/50 money prize for a basketball shoot. We did the concession stands at the football field and inside and had soup suppers. When we had the concession stands we had to count how many popcorn sacks we had before and after the game along with how many drink cups we used as we did not have bottles of drinks in the stand in those years, and how many candy bars were left etc. The money that went to the stand was figured out from the proceeds.
Thinking back to when I first started as the adviser Maria Chrisman and I did it the first year and then I took over. I had a good area representative who lived in North Platte that would come and visit with the kids and see how we were doing. Sometimes the students wanted to design the book cover instead of using one from the publishing company and use their own art work. We did not have the luxury of using digital photos then either like they do now. In fact the first couple years the students had to develop film and roll film on canisters to use in cameras.
There is a darkroom located under the stage in the multipurpose room at the high school. I think Jon Forney used to teach photography at one time and used that room. Later we would use Kodak film and have to wait to have it sent in to be processed. Now the school photographer just sends the digital photos to the class to be placed on the pages.
Most of the years I was involved with yearbooks they were all black and white except for the seniors pictures and the whole senior class in the middle of the book. The books now are all color. Digital pictures are so much easier to work with. When we had photos and wanted to crop out an area we had a measuring tool to map out the area and take a red grease pencil and mark where to crop it. When we sent in pictures of all the students in the class photo pages we had to put a sticker on the back of each with a corresponding number as to where the photo would go on the page under that students names. The pictures had to have the page number, placement number and be sent in face-to-face and back-to-back. On the sports pages I would ask the head coach from those teams to write up a short summary of the season of their thoughts and highlights to add to interesting facts in the book. We also put in the scores of the teams they played to be looked back on at future reunions when reminiscing.
While being the yearbook adviser I found a few boxes of left over books from years ago of various years. To help raise money to sponsor the book when the school reunions were held I carried several older books down and put them on a display table and just left them there for the evening and left a jar asking for a $5.00 donation. We usually made about $35. One year Chuck Tharp told me that was to much as back in his day in high school the books only cost $1,00. When my yearbook students sold them they were $20 and now they are $40.
The books for many many years were just 9th through 12th grades, when the schools were consolidated into one school the book was changed to Kindergarten through 12th grades in 2006 and pre-school has been added.
Through the years there have been many yearbook advisers, at one time the art teachers were in charge. Nicole Putnam took over after I retired and this year Peyton Woodmancy Rowley will take over the duty.
Some people may think yearbooks are not necessary, some cherish theirs. Some people don’t want theirs anymore and donate them to the museum.
When I was working in the high school office there was a man named Bill McGann from North Platte who would come and get a few books at a time and take and scan each book page by page and put them on CD disks, he then gave them to the high school to put in the office safe. I think he also scanned all of the books from Elsie, Madrid and Venango. I am not sure if he kept doing that after I retired.
This is just a side note, one time I had to have an MRI and I am clostrophobic so when I went into the tube I kept my eyes closed and to keep my mind on something during that time I visually went through all 64 pages of the current book and mapped out in my mind if certain pages were done or not, which students needed to take photos at a game, if the yearbook orders were coming in and deadline met.
The years I was the adviser a man from Brown Harano photography from North Platte was the school photographer after they closed the school had Life Touch, Bob Alberts and Avente Garde and now my daughter Katie Arndt from Cozad take the pictures.
The Perkins County High School has at least one copy of each year that the Plainsmen books were made clear back to 1947 and maybe longer.
It was a lot of fun working with the kids and seeing the finished product at the end of each year. It is important to capture the history of a school year and record when buildings were added or new sports were introduced, who the teachers and non-certified staff, administration, and school board members were etc. You can’t bring back those years; or can you?
Go look up your yearbook, bring back the memories.