Edmond Memorial High School’s yearbook staff attended Oklahoma Scholastic Media’s Fall Media Day on Oct. 30, where they received over 20 awards, including the Social Media Strategy award and the Diversity award.
Because of their performance in these categories, OSM invited members of the yearbook staff to host workshops for all attendees. Yearbook adviser Elanna Dobbs shared with advisers and yearbook staff from around the state how to plan and execute diversity coverage, and senior design editor Gracie Elbow and photography editor Kennedy Day presented their social media strategy.
Memorial’s yearbook staff was considered the best in the state for how they implemented diversity into the book by representing all students through their media. As the adviser, Dobbs works with the staff to ensure that they meet certain diversity standards. This is accomplished by featuring individuals of all backgrounds, highlighting small and large teams or groups alike, and revealing the hidden story.
“Diversity is focusing on the entire student body,” Dobbs said. “Every student needs to see themselves in the yearbook.”
Alongside ensuring the book represents all students, a yearbook staff must also ensure that students are actually interested in buying it. Most yearbooks use social media to advertise and sell their yearbook to students. Elbow and Day are the social media managers for Memorial’s yearbook staff, so their workshop focused on social media strategies. More specifically, they found it important to teach other yearbook teams how to flex their marketing muscles online.
“It was important for us because when we got the yearbook account, it had around 200 followers and now it has 900 or a thousand,” Elbow said. “Since we started posting more about that and collaborating with other school accounts, we saw an increase in sales, which also helped fund more things.”
Showing other staff social media managers’ yearbook marketing skills was their main goal, so Elbow and Day wanted to ensure that their message was communicated properly. After late nights preparing for the workshop, Elbow and Day taught their lesson in a lecture hall full of journalism students. Despite some initial nerves, both editors stepped into their roles and delivered the workshop.
“The first full five minutes, my hands were shaking; I was so scared, but it was really fun,” Day said. “At some point, it just felt like talking to my staff.”
After the workshops were over, yearbook teams from all over Oklahoma joined together for the awards ceremony. On top of their awards for social media and diversity, Memorial’s yearbook staff won Highest Honor and All-Oklahoma, as well as over 20 individual awards for writing, photography and design, and former staff writer Sophia Rodriguez won Writer of the Year. Despite the hard work that comes with putting the book together, many staff members feel that the recognition they receive at state makes it all worth it.
“You’re put under a lot of stress, but when you reap the rewards and benefits of actually producing the book and seeing other people enjoy it, it brings you closer,” Day said.
Memorial’s yearbook staff was awarded at OSM’s annual Fall Media Day for their efforts during the year. By encouraging diversity, the team highlights different aspects of school life and paints a full picture of the community at EMHS. Going forward, the yearbook team will use the feedback from their competition to fuel their work and improve.
Contact Emma Lynch and Noelia Ocampo Resendiz at [email protected]
