When most students were enjoying a summer off from school, 26 Clarkston High School journalism students went back into the classroom to better their skills.
With no requirement to do so, the students attended their choice of three publication workshops at Michigan State University and Oakland University to practice journalistic writing, desktop publishing, photography, graphic design, marketing and theme development.
“It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun,” senior Elizabeth Eastman said, who is an editor for the Hilltopper, CHS’s yearbook.
The students spent all day in classes, and then had homework on top of it.
But their dedication, and talent, didn’t go unnoticed.
Many of the students were awarded at the workshops, held June 18-20 at OU, July 13-16 at MSU’s Aker’s Hall, and Aug. 3-7 at MSU’s Shaw Hall.
At the second workshop, sponsored by Herff-Jones publishing company, attending members of the CHS Hilltopper staff won a first place, “best-of-show” award for their yearbook theme, cover and concept. This included seniors Whitney Bomier, Kelly Boskee, Sara Horne, Eric Howse, Mallory Mast, Anne Mazzeo, Katie Opie, Morgan Sheets and Krista Townsend and sophomores Ashley Dasuqi and Amanda Davis.
The students shined through more than 300 attending students from Michigan, Ohio and Indiana.
Paul Ender, former California yearbook advisor and Herff-Jones consultant, said the ideas generated for the 2004 Hilltopper were some of the best he’d seen all summer.
Individually, Bomier won a “best-in-class” award for her work in a beginning yearbook class.
Then, among more than 600 participating students at the third workshop, sponsored by the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association, senior Mallory Mast received a “head of class” award for her publication design class.
Mast and classmate Lauren Ferraro each received “Sparty” awards for layouts created in their publication design class. And Senior Lauren Hunt also won a “Sparty” award for her photography. “Sparty” awards were given to those students viewed as “best in camp,” and only 40 were awarded.
“It was really exciting to win,” Mast said, who is a second-year editor for the Hilltopper. Both Mast and Ferraro, who is the yearbook’s business manager, said they were surprised at the win.
Other Clarkston students attending workshops were seniors Kelly Dougherty, Lyndsey Hart, Ashley Hughes, Alison Leech, Katie Opie, Tony Passmore, Mallory Pryzbylski, Morgan Sheets and Shanna Williamson, juniors Matt Clark and Elizabeth Eastman, and sophomore Kellie Giaier.
Even Amber Gilmore, yearbook advisor and teacher, got into the action, attending camp as an instructor for a yearbook editors-in-chief class.
“This is a great staff. I’m excited to work with them,” she said, noting 40 students applied for the Hilltopper, and 20 were accepted. “They’re really dedicated, determined and enthusiastic. They have all kinds of ideas. I’m very impressed with that.”
She was also impressed with their dedication at the summer workshops, some missing family vacations to take on class and homework in a college setting.
“As a group, they displayed outstanding teamwork, effort and promise. I think we’ll have a great year,” Gilmore said.
The students are looking forward to seeing their work in print.
“It’s kind of overwhelming at times. The deadlines can be harsh,” Mast said, who attended the workshop because it showed a commitment to the yearbook and set and example for staff. “It’s going to be really stressful. But it’s usually exciting. You have to remember, the end result is going to be really cool. You see people walking down the hallway carrying (the yearbook) you helped design. It’s not like a newspaper, when people are done reading it, they throw it away, these they keep forever.”
Eastman feels the same. “You look at it and say, ‘I (designed) that page.’”