Carson High yearbook wins national award

After careful attention to placing their fellow students "in the limelight" last year, the Carson High School yearbook staff was awarded Wednesday when the annual was inducted into Walsworth Publishing Company's Gallery of Excellence.

Howard Dusek, regional director for the publishing company, told the students that only about 6 percent of yearbooks nationwide receive the recognition.

"The Gallery of Excellence is a showcase of the finest yearbooks produced by Walsworth customers," he read. "It is an enormous task of combining a great theme with great design and adding compelling coverage and photography throughout the book to come up with that winning combination that tells the story of the year for each student."

McKenna Keefer, 17, was an editor of the book last year and serves as co-editor this year.

"I was very excited," she said. "I've seen previous editors get the award, and I wanted to keep it to the same level."

She said developing last year's theme, "In the Limelight," was key to the yearbook's success.

"It's the fine details that make it what it is," she said.

Co-editor Brittney Allen added, "It takes the book from fine to extreme."

In keeping with the theme, all the headlines were movie titles and lime green was used throughout the design.

"We incorporated stairs into almost every spread," Allen said. "Everything was about freshmen climbing up through the years into the limelight."

The class has won the award every year since 2000 except 2006.

"What I see is a real commitment from the students that means sometimes they're here for hours and hours and hours after school. And it shows," said adviser Patt Quinn-Davis. "We have some real special kids in here. They know how to be self-motivated."

Quinn-Davis said her background in newspapers helps her lead the class.

"I treat it like a newsroom," she said. "I tell them you're not a high school kid when you're in here, you're a member of the yearbook staff. I run the class, but they have to make all the decisions."

As part of the award, the yearbook will be used as a model for other schools across the country to follow.

"We're such a small town, and for our book to be shown in big cities as an example is very cool," said staffer Kristin Withrow, 17. "It's an honor."

But anyone who's liked the yearbooks from past years hasn't seen anything yet, said co-editor Jeremiah Bentley, 17.

Although the theme isn't revealed until the day the books are delivered to students, he said it's going to be like nothing seen before.

"We're going to push this year's yearbook even farther than last year," he said. "We're going to make it really unique. We have a lot of talent this year, and that will really help us reach new goals."