Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 30, 1992 TAG: 9203300020
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOE KENNEDY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"They told me I could take this or ceramics or something," she says. She chose "this" - a one-credit photojournalism class in which she helps to produce the school's yearbook.
She had no experience. But she does now.
Spraker - who is as quiet and diminutive as many another 14-year-old - has put together several photo-and-copy spreads; taken pictures with the staff camera and interviewed people, like school wrestlers; and attended events, like wrestling matches, she might otherwise have missed.
She has learned by doing, and she has liked it, in spite of the stress.
"It's fun after it's finished, like, seeing what you've done," she says. "It's sort of complicated when you're doing it."
That, advisers say, is one of the most maturing aspects of yearbook work. Adolescence is an impulsive age, little concerned with distant deadlines and intangible glory - or disgrace.
There's nothing like an expensive, complex, team-oriented project to focus a young person's mind.
"I run it almost like a business, treat them very much like adults," says Sandy Ferguson, the yearbook adviser at Cave Spring High School. "They set their own deadlines, and I expect them to meet them. They're very much expected to be independent in learning how to figure out how to program their lives to get everything done the way they're supposed to."
And when they don't do it, she throws screaming fits.
"I had one today," she says, with a laugh. "But, you know, it's a different sort of atmosphere from a regular academic class. It's as though they're working for me. If they don't like what we're doing, they'll tell me."
Sometimes, the students end up liking the work immensely. Keisha Calloway of William Fleming High School loves to operate the video camera at school events and revels in the behind-the-scenes access it gives her.
When Phyllis Zorn asked Candith Melton, a yearbook staffer at William Byrd High School in Vinton, what she liked about the work, Melton said, "Meeting the people and laughing at the pictures."
It's not all work. It couldn't be, or no one would do it.
There are other rewards. Sandy Ferguson has her staff down to her lake house each year.
"If we make every deadline, and we did, we have a `rehabilitation day,' " Glenvar High's Nancy Hartenstein says. She and co-adviser Jim Cromer bring in drinks and cookies. "And yesterday, we had a big pizza party" for meeting the final deadline.
"I'm a witch," says Joyce Noel of Salem. "I scream, holler, yell. They work Saturdays and Sundays - but they also get to eat pizza, watch TV," eat from the candy basket and listen to rock music, all on school property. They also get to do their homework on the computers in the yearbook office.
For some students, yearbook work leads to further studies in journalism and related fields. Muffy Feinour, a layout specialist at Patrick Henry High School, thinks she may study graphics and design in college.
Melany Bundy, the editor-in-chief, plans to study biomedical photography.
Chad Martin, co-editor of Salem's Laconian, wants to be a newspaper reporter.
Not every staffer embraces the work. Some need to be prodded. But others are gung-ho, enjoying the stress, the friendships and the sense of accomplishment.
Then there are the advisers. Noel, in her third year, freely admits the Salem yearbook "has become my fourth child." The other three are off at college.
She calls it "a real commitment" for everyone and compares it to "God, family and academics."
Phyllis Zorn of William Byrd acknowledges the hassles and the stress, then says, "I love it."
"I didn't know whether I'd enjoy doing this or not," Glenvar's Nancy Hartenstein says. "I was kind of coerced into it."
But she loves the sense of triumph and the joy of working with "10 just fantastic kids."
by CNB