Yearbook class is a combination of being interactive with the school, and working under certain deadlines, which is fairly easy for staffers because they have the accessibility to do everything at school. But then something terrible happened right around Spring Break… the Coronavirus hit the US, Texas and Alvin. 

    So when the school was shut down after spring break  because of COVID 19, the 2020 Yellowjacket Yearbook Staff still had to finish the yearbook by deadline. Except now, the staff had to finish from their homes to meet the March 30 publication deadline. Working remotely, editors and adviser banned together to make it happen. 

   “It was kinda stressful,” editor Paige Parker said. We were trying to figure out how to get quotes, and trying to get the rest of the pictures was killer hard.”

    At school, the yearbook staff shares a server that contains photos of every school event. This means that the staff had to finish the book without the server. The publication adviser, Jessica Tompkins, parked in the school lot to attach to the network to move needed photos over the week after spring break.  The staff and Tompkins had a lot of late nights in front of their home computers in order to meet the deadline. 

      “ I have two young kids at home that require a lot of attention,” Tompkins said. “I found myself staying awake at night to work  on pages in order to finish while my kids slept. Several editors jumped on board, and we were able to accomplish a huge feat by finishing this book by deadline.”

  Editor Paige Parker worked several late nights and helped by attaining info needed for the senior spreads that were left. Editor in Chief,  Lucy Aguilar assisted with copyediting and proof reading and fixing templates, and  editor Jeinny Pinete helped with identifying students for the final product. Sports Editor Khori Bolton was able to gather up the last of the sports quotes needed to finish pages. Copyeditor Amber Matula also proofread and helped complete sports pages. Team Section editor Keigyn Villaloboz spent the whole year working on the team picture section of the book. Luckily,  she had it almost complete by spring break and was able to help get it all wrapped up at home. 

    “When I realized we had to finish the book at home, it seemed like a big shadow that is looking down at you, and it seemed like a big challenge at the time,”  Aguilar said. “However as time went on, it didn’t become so scary as we all worked on it together.  My priority during this time regarding the yearbook was to make sure that everything was perfect, from checking the stories for punctuation to making sure that pictures were all aligned to look nice and neat.”

   The editors and adviser had to make a few last minute changes and adjustments in order to accommodate the changes that COVID 19 caused. This resulted in an extra empty page, which now contains information on the Coronavirus so that students could remember the virus that affected their 2020 school year. 

   “We felt it was important to put this page in the book because when students looked back their 2020 school year when they are 30,40,50 etc., they would certainly remember the pandemic as part of that school year, so we squeezed a page in the book to mark history,” Tompkins said. “Also, my entire staff team was amazing this year. When we left for Spring Break, the pages were in great shape and we were on target. I never thought I would ever be submitting final deadline from home, but we were in the best shape to do it this year.  The staff working so hard all year is the reason why we were able to finish up remotely. Each student’s individual effort made this all happen in the end.” 

     The book was stressful and hectic  to complete, yet the staff is excited about their final product. The 2020 book features an extra special cover to commemorate the year 2020, and also the 125th Alvin High anniversary.  The 2020 yearbook staff  is yet another example of how a community can come together and accomplish great things.