By: Kara Adkins
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a yearbook must be worth a million.
This year’s Round-Up Yearbook is particularly special to the heart and history of Coppell. It will mark the 50th edition of Coppell High School’s yearbook, exemplifying the hard work and dedication that CHS students put in to create a fantastic product filled with memories and recaps of the year.
As CHS has grown from a few hundred kindergarten through 12th graders in the ‘70s to almost 2,700 high school students today, the yearbook has likewise evolved. Over the years, the yearbook staff has put more time and effort into making sure Coppell is proud of the finished product.
“This is my sixth year [as yearbook adviser at CHS] and I’m so proud of where we are,” yearbook adviser Rachel Pellegrino said. “They are all working hard to get their pages done and they dedicate themselves to coming and working.”
With such a hardworking staff, it doesn’t come as any surprise that the Round-Up Yearbook is ranked in the top 10 percent of high school yearbooks and has won gold for the past three years from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. Staff members are well-aware of the importance of this edition and the expectations they must live up to.
“It’s not only a yearbook for the kids this year, but the district keeps all of them so it’s like a history record of our school,” yearbook Editor-in-Chief, senior, Emily Groff said.
For new yearbook members, this year will challenge them and show them just how much time is put in to making a yearbook complete. With this being such a significant year, it puts even more pressure on them in order to pull off a great product.
“There is a ton to do and this year’s is going to be special,” new yearbook staff member Allison Draper said. “There’s going to be a lot of things to bring back from the past. It’s also very stressful though because it is so important.”
Students should expect many special additions to this yearbook to match the significance of this issue. The yearbook will include a 16-page mini magazine to give a better representation of the history of the school. The staff will bring back photos from the earlier editions of the yearbooks and mix them with current ones in order to show how Coppell has grown and developed over the years.
Another way yearbook is stepping out and trying something different is their many new advertising tactics. Early purchasers were given a T-shirt with Coppell’s zip code, 75019, printed on them with the 50 emphasized to show how momentous this year is. They are also thinking up many different raffles and creative fundraisers in order to make sure every student has a book this year.
“We’re just trying to honor our history and make sure people buy a book and that it’s something that has a little bit for everybody,” Pellegrino said. “We try to get everybody in the book at least two or three times.”
With over half of the student body purchasing yearbooks and also being represented in the yearbook more than once, this staff works to include everybody and doesn’t focus on one secular group of individuals.
“A lot of people look at yearbook and wonder what we do,” Pellegrino said. “But they [the staff members] have to write, go interview, they go to almost every event on our campus. We are trying to cover everything.”
At the end of the year, the staff is very proud of what they have accomplished together, with their main goal being to put a yearbook in as many student hands as possible.
“We are trying to show students that this yearbook is special and everybody needs to have one,” Pellegrino said.
The Round-Up yearbook staff expects this year’s edition to be one for the record books.
