Every year the HHS Journalism class designs and creates a yearbook to perfectly wrap up that year at Heritage. The 2021-2022 yearbook entitled “Still” was chosen to be part of the Jostens’ Look Book alongside 480 other schools, out of over 1,000 submissions. (Due to the fact that Heritage’s yearbook is delivered the following school year in August, as opposed to before school is out in the spring, there is a delay in recognition for the Look Book.) This is the fourth year in a row that the Heritage yearbook, “The Legacy,” has been chosen for inclusion in the Look Book. The Look Book is a 300-page book that features the best of the best yearbooks each year. The Look Book is sent to over 11,000 schools for inspiration. The idea that the 2021-2022 Journalism staff had for this particular yearbook was based around “persistence.” As the opening spread in the book explained, “After almost two years of dealing with a pandemic, students, teachers, and staff had become supremely flexible, experts at adapting to a variety of circumstances.” This yearbook theme was a way to connect through the students and really show how they all were able to “still” accomplish their wonderful year, no matter the hardships that came.
Although the yearbook made during the 2021-2022 school year was chosen as the best of the best, it wasn’t only a wonderful yearbook that came from that year. “What stands out to me was that all of the leadership that I have this year [2023-24] kind of all started that year [2021-2022],” said Mr. Peace, the yearbook sponsor. The 2022 year had many students who really stood out based on their leadership skills and became an inspiration to many including the current Yearbook Editors Allie Boyd and Briley Simpson, General Journal Editor-in-Chief Natalie Ferry, and four-year Journalism staff member Miles Clark.
Every year these students work closely together, interviewing other students, taking pictures, and writing different pieces. Alumni Paige Johnson, Yearbook Editor for the “Still” book, “The best thing about Journalism was that not everyone had to be good at the same thing! We could all be good at different things and still create a great yearbook.” Alongside veteran staff member and alumni Cade Stone, Johnson led the creative ideas and made the executive decisions that led to “Still” being so great. Junior Natalie Ferry, who was a freshman in the 2021-2022 school year, said, “It was a big deal to come in and be like, ‘Hey, these are my ideas.’ [The other members] always valued them, and it meant a lot to 14-year-old me.” Everyone gets the opportunity to be able to share their own ideas and creativity when it comes to making the yearbook. The students each help carefully
Front Row, from Left: Sophia Isler, Georgia King, Allie Boyd, Natalie Ferry, and John Hurst
Back Row: Connor Richardson, Cade Stone, and Paige Johnson (Garrett Peace)
formulate the theme for every year and design various spreads for each page. Current senior and Yearbook Editor Allie Boyd explained, “The year we were working on ‘Still’ was a good group of kids, and it was fun. We were a small group, and we just got really close.” After working on the yearbook all year, the students tend to grow close and form real connections. The HHS Journalism Staff are proud to have one of their yearbooks chosen for this year’s Jostens’ Look Book and hope to see the 2022-2023 book accepted next year.
