Yearbooks are an investment in your memory

By ALEX BACON

EISENHOWER HIGH SCHOOL

Whenever I start to talk to my mom about high school, sooner or later her yearbooks come out.

She has all her yearbooks placed on a special shelf in the front room. As she flips through them, she points out people with whom she was friends, activities in which she was involved, her favorite teachers, people who didn't like her and a slew of other things of which she's reminded.

Every picture she points out has a story. Some have more than one.

It's the same with my own yearbooks. I can thumb through the pages and see my friends, my activities and a well-made representation of life at Eisenhower High School for that particular year.

But I hear students complaining that the high price of the Reveille, Eisenhower's yearbook, keeps them from buying one.

Unfortunately, yearbook sales are declining. Some students don't seem to realize how much hard work and money is poured into these books. It takes lots of dedication to produce a yearbook -- and about $30,000.

But, according to yearbook adviser Carol Mills, only 600 copies of Reveille were sold last year in a school of about 2,000 students. That's barely over a quarter of the school's student population.

I'm on the yearbook staff, so I understand the pain, frustration and hard work that goes into production of a quality book.

I am also a witness to the frequent calls the yearbook adviser receives asking for replacement books for ruined copies, or wanting to acquire books that the caller was negligent in buying during their years at Ike.

I'm always amazed at the low number of students buying the yearbook. It's a great yearbook, and a group of students puts long hours into making it. We design the layouts, go to each event to take the pictures, write the stories, do the interviews, sell the ads and host the tolo to raise money for the production.

Twenty years down the road, I might not remember much about high school until I pull out my yearbook and look at the pictures. Once I start to leaf through my pages, I'll remember who my friends were and what I did. I'll have stories to tell my children.

I currently have three of four yearbooks, and the fourth is in production at this very moment.

My yearbook is important to me. And at about $40, it's comparatively cheap. Most yearbooks our size, about 240 pages, cost double what the Reveille costs.

But a yearbook is not just a purchase, it is an investment -- an investment in your memory.

You can't honestly say that when you're 80 years old you will remember the theme of your junior fall tolo without the help of your yearbook. You won't remember every teacher's name, every friend you had or even what your hair looked like.

I need my yearbook so that when I get married or have kids I can share stories about my childhood and they can actually see what I'm talking about. I want to be able to look back and remember what it was all like. And in the event I develop memory loss, I'll still be able to look back and see something that was once important to me.