After losing their former adviser, Molly Sargeant, the yearbook class has been taken over by English teacher and first year yearbook adviser, Amy Deffenbacher. This class takes place during seventh period and has a total of 10 students. The class has three deadlines each consisting of 40 pages. The deadline changes depedning on the size of the school so for FC, 120 pages is all the school needs.

The editors of the class are the stronghold of the team as told by Deffenbacher. Seniors, Sarah Lim and Mikayla Messer have taken over the program despite the lack of knoweldege Deffenbacher and the staff has.

Messer joined the yearbook staff her sophomore year and fell in love with it ever since. The adviser at the time, Sargent, educated Messer of the system of making a yearbook in full knowledge that the next year Messer would be the editor.

“I kind of fell in love with it,” Messer said. “It’s really fun because you get to do what you want and you?re making it for your classmates and for your school, its not just for yourself. It?s great watching peoples expression at the end of the year and you hear people say ‘Oh I love this page’ and then you think to yourself ‘Oh I made that page,’ so I just really enjoy it.”

Lim joined her junior year and realized how fun making a book for the whole school was. She not only enjoyed the behind the scenes work but the connections she made with the staff.

“Last years yearbook staff was great,” Lim said. “I had a lot of fun in the class and made some great connections with new people. I definitely wouldn?t trade this class for anything.”

Since the yearbook is primarily made up of pictures the struggle for the year has been gaining photos. It is the staff’s job to find pictures to use, and to take them too. Deffenbacher has seen the struggle the staff has producing photos for the book.

“Getting photos has been the challenge for this year,” Deffenbacher said. “Some of our team is not very motivated to go out on their own time to get photos. They come to seventh period day after day say ‘Oh I didn?t get pictures’ and they think they can magically get pictures during 7th period every day so that’s been a huge challenge.”

The yearbook staff began their year getting the deadlines set and handing out different positions to the staff. Messer and Lim are in charge of the design and artistic side of the yearbook while Deffenbacher is in charge of the grammatical side to the year book.

Not having enough people on board has caused some struggle for the team. Lim and Messer have had to split up a certain number of pages to the staff members, to keep the ball rolling for the yearbook. Lim notices the problems that arise with a small staff, but is confident about the staffs work ethic.

“Each staff memeber has one sports page one academic page one student life page,” Lim said. “We all split it up especially since we don?t have enough on the team. Each staff memeber willl take on a couple of roles so our job as editors is keeping them on task of their pages.”

Messer is excited for her time afte high school due to the possiblity of coming back to FC and assisting Deffenbacher with next years yearbook class.

“Its a great opportunity,” Messer said. “I’m excited because yearbook has really given me some great resoucres such as better typing skills, powerpoint skills and pretty much understanding computers better.”

For Lim, her favorite part of the process is being able to view the book before any other students. She enjoys choosing the pictures that are shown in the yearbook, and is excited when the book becomes tangible at the end of the year.

“My favorite part of yearbook is kind of a no brainer,” Lim said. “It’s being able to see it before anyone else, and being in control of what pictures go in there. We get to see what goes in the yearbook before everyone else and we get to see the reactions of the people at the end of the year too after all of our hard work.”

Deffenbacher praises the hard work and dedication that Lim and Messer put in for the yearbook. She recognizes the strengths they both bring to the class.

“Mikayla and Sarah are fantastic editors,” Deffenbacher said. “They’re main strength in the class is that they know what they are doing because they have done it before. They can look at a page and see what needs to be fixed immediately. With out them there would be no yearbook. I’m very grateful for them.”

This author can be reached via Twitter: @han_avila. Follow The Feather via Twitter: @thefeather.

Fore more features, read the Feb. 11 article Feather highlights: ‘Life Chats with Deb’ blog.