Shadle High’s Yearbook Judged Best In The Nation

CORRECTION: Thursday, October 5, 1995 N2 Jeremy Wynne’s name was misspelled in a story about the Shadle Park High School yearbook in last week’s North Side Voice.

Jaki Lake has done a pretty good job of faking it.

Since being hired eight years ago as the Shadle Park High School yearbook adviser - admittedly clueless as how to put together an annual - the Sporran has been consistently honored by national groups as among the best.

Lake can now white-out the “among.”

The American Scholastic Press Association has chosen the 1995 Shadle Park annual the most outstanding in the country.

The book will also be one of 100 - out of a total of 8,500 published - used as an example of excellence by the yearbook’s publisher, Taylor Publishing.

“The first year wasn’t one of the highlights of my career,” said Lake. “I didn’t have a clue what I was doing.”

Lake said she and the 22-student staff that produced the annual were not looking for honors. The judges write detailed critiques, which help the next staff design the next book.

She says the staff, particularly coeditors and graduated seniors Kim Snell and Jeremy Wayne, deserve much of the credit.

Lake set a standard of clean layout, good writing and student leadership that has reaped the school a wall full of awards.

A six-student team of editors makes all editorial decisions and teaches other staff members the insand-outs of writing, copy editing, photography and design.

Students must apply for a staff position, and Lake solicits teacher recommendations.

Six staff members this year are in Lake’s demanding advanced-placement English class. The staff is consistently filled with some of the best writers in school.

Melissa Evans, a senior serving as copy editor this year, once turned in a short story that her teacher did not make a mark on, Lake said.

Editors are in part chosen by the outgoing seniors, who rope talented underclassmen into signing up for leadership positions. The hand-down-the-torch system has meant students pass down knowledge from one year to the next, and successful formulas are preserved.

Although the program has found success sticking with a successful formula, the students are not afraid to experiment.

Last year, the award-winning staff completely switched layout styles - a change that the 1995 Sporran readers may not have noticed but one that helped the book stand out.

The 1996 team, led by editors Steve Dixson and Betsy Myers, went to a yearbook conference in Bellingham this summer but found they already knew most of material being taught.

So they blew off sessions and huddled to design the 1996 yearbook.

“I want this to be a student product, not a teacher product,” said Lake.

This year’s annual will be the first completely laid out on computer. Lake, a confessed computer-phobe, has recruited students with a high technical aptitude.

Others are drawn to the yearbook “because it looks good on college applications.”

Dixson, who also plays soccer and works at Little Caesar’s Pizza, said part of his involvement is resume-building. But it is also because he asked himself, “What can you look back on during your high school years. … What did you do?”

The staff has much respect for Lake. Dixson said it is not coincidence that Shadle Park annuals have been honored under six different groups of editors.

“You definitely listen to her opinion,” said Dixson.

Her assistance helps lessen the burden of repeating the award for the 1995 book, but not much.

“You ask yourself, ‘So what do we do this year?’ It’s kind of a high standard to line up to,” said Dixson.

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