Rebecca Neumann
Staff Writer

When you see a bunch of students carrying 69 pound boxes into the gym from a truck parked outside, you know something interesting is going on at Coppell High School.

This morning, the yearbook and photography students carried their creation into the school in order to distribute them to more than half the student population over the next few weeks. What was most peculiar, however, was the time that the boxes full of yearbooks were taken into the building: 6 a.m. And the
students unloading had to arrive at the school at 5:30.

Next year’s editor-and-chief Emily Groff said that this was typical for a yearbook distribution day.

“We had to do it so early because we have to take all the boxes out of the truck and load them, open them, sort them alphabetically, put the CD supplements in the back of the book and we have to do that all before 8 a.m. so that everybody who gets here early can get their books before school,” Groff said. “It actually took us an hour and a half yesterday to set up the tables and signs and binders. Today we’re here from 5:30 a.m. to 8 a.m. when we actually open.”

Current yearbook editor Loren Carlile slept over with a friend before arriving at 5:30 a.m. to begin unloading yearbooks.

“We have to be here at 5:30 in the morning because that’s when the books come in and we can’t get them any earlier because we have nowhere to store them,” Carlile said. “So basically we stay here until about six on Thursday night and then we just come here by 5:30. Some people stay up the whole night and don’t sleep at all and other people have their own little sleepover. We stay here until 6 p.m. tonight getting ready for Monday to sell books. After that the yearbooks girls just hang out together.”

Yearbook adviser Rachel Pellegrino rushed around the entire time directing students to tables and helping organize. Distributing the books is a huge undertaking considering the size of CHS, she said.

“Basically it’s a tradition that we sell to over half the student body, over 1800 books come in and in order for us to get them out we arrive at 5:30, the truck arrives, we unload it, organize it, get it ready at 8 a.m. we start handing out books,” Pellegrino said. “As people buy books we put together in a database, so the database has everybody’s online sale as well as off-campus sales. After we sort all that then we have to turn that in, so we’ve got the database. Really, it’s a lot of little pieces and then the day of its boom. Whereas if we had gotten the books in earlier, we would have to cart them all the way down to the room, all the way back. It’s just much easier this way.”

For the yearbooks staff, distribution is the culmination of everything they have done all year. They get to see the final product and they get to see their creation for themselves for the first time.

For [the students], this is the big pay off,” Pellegrino said. “We’re going to distribute until 3 June, which is the last day of exams. After that, it gets boxed up and if people haven’t bought them, or come and gotten them, they’ll have to wait until next year.”