In an ever-busy world, we seem to forget what we have experienced in order to more easily focus on the present. In the school environment, this could not be more true; we base our lives around due dates of assignments and weekends, forgetting to actually enjoy the experience of high school. Yet every year, we are gifted with a yearbook that reflects on our experiences for us so we don’t actively have to. More often than not, we as students take these books for granted and don’t recognize that without them, there would not be much in the way of completely forgetting the high school experience and those that shaped our lives so early on. At Air Academy, the story is no different.

The yearbook team works diligently year round to capture our memories and concisely summarize them in a unique fashion every year. As Junior Whitney Moran, a member of the yearbook team and head news editor here at the Jetstream Journal, puts it, “The primary goal is to get everyone in the book and make sure it’s a clean cut book that everyone will love to look back at when they are out of high school.” Every student is guaranteed to be featured in the yearbook once or twice. Similarly, every club and sport gets a spot in the yearbook highlighting what they are about and any major memories from the year. Regardless of how hard some students may try to stay out of pictures, the yearbook team ensures that they will be in the book at some point; no one is left out. After all, the high school experience belongs to everyone.

For those that are in yearbook, the experience of gathering and organizing the memories is an enriching one. It is always entertaining to live vicariously through others and to learn about events or memories that would not have been seen otherwise. The students that buy the yearbooks only get to see the finished product, they don’t sift through hundreds, if not thousands, of pictures to find the right ones. Through this process, the yearbook team essentially gets to witness everyone’s year. As Whitney continues, “someone is always out at 2:45 taking photos of sports and clubs, making sure we get everyone in the book.” No details are missed, making the year long summary a thorough one.

Moreover, participating in yearbook, like Journalism or any other unique school activity, teaches the students lessons they will be able to apply throughout life. For example, the yearbook team has “learned to get outside of [their] boundaries and talk to people that [they] don’t know in order to get everyone covered.” Gathering pictures and memories of all of the students at Air Academy is no easy task that is merely gifted to the yearbook team, they have to go do this themselves and meet everyone at some point in time. Regardless of what jobs students may be in later on in life, everyone is forced to interact with someone; and yearbook teaches those interpersonal skills the students will need, better than perhaps any other club or activity could.

Should anyone be wanting to join yearbook in the following year, start looking into it and talking to people about it as soon as possible because entrance is in high demand. The yearbook team is run by the Jetstream Journal’s very own Ellen Steinke and has just as high quality of a class. New members will be expected to be able to actively contribute to the yearbook, meet new people, be involved with school activities, stay after school to learn about certain clubs, take pictures of everything, and, most importantly, have fun. The creation of the yearbook, and the team that is responsible for it, is by far even more enjoyable than just looking back through it is. Mrs. Steinke’s main goal in any form of her teaching is to ensure that students have fun with life and become well rounded, contributing members of society; and being a part of the yearbook team does just that.

Even if you may not be interested in being a part of the yearbook team, it is worth it to buy a yearbook and look through it. A great deal of effort goes into creating these books every year to give Air Academy students something to hold on to after graduation, don’t let it go to waste.