Tension sours the atmosphere and anxiety sets in as the class rushes to finish. After the constant toil involved in the completion of a yearbook page, a breath of relief is sighed as a student relinquishes part of the stress involved in the making of the annual yearbook.

Composed of an average one hundred and sixty pages, the yearbook creates a summary of the year that unfolds at a glance.

“The yearbook offers more than just pictures and captions; it helps me remember the past year and lets me reminisce over the various things that have happened,” Megan Alcorn, ’07, said.

Students who are in the yearbook class, led by adviser Molly Sargent, are better able than the average student to appreciate the complexities of the yearbook.

“The overall experience of creating a page in the yearbook helps me learn more about computers and the different technologies that are involved in making a yearbook,” Ronnie Giannetta, ’08, said, “Instead of learning about spreadsheets like you would in computer class, we actually get to create something read by the entire school.”

The yearbook includes various sections dedicated to specific causes or events, such as academic classes, sports, formals, high school life and each individual class.

“Yearbook teaches the students how to not only deal with meeting certain deadlines, but it also helps each person to become better writers and thinkers as they attempt to compose a number of pages throughout the progression of the year,” Sargent said.

While funds for yearbook are often hard to come by, the annual yearbook sale at the start of the year both gives students a chance to buy a yearbook for a one-time lowered price and allows the yearbook class to raise the money needed to have the book produced and created.

“Every year I buy a yearbook because you only have four years of high school before you enter college and loose contact with friends,” Nic Westburg, ’05, said, “Also, by buying a yearbook I can watch my friends age overtime and have their signatures written on the inside pages to remember them by.”

As years come and go, memories remain for those who have a yearbook to remind them. The yearbook has proved to be the one book students continue to refer to when they look back on their high school years.