By Jordan Liu | Copy Editor
A resounding cheer filled Room B138 on March 30 as the Ash-á-Wût Yearbook staff watched their advisor Philip Zamora click a single button and submit each and every one of the pages of the yearbook to be printed. A feeling of relief and excitement flooded the room- after so many months of hard work, the yearbook was finally done.
“When we submitted all the pages it felt good- but for me at least, it felt a little sentimental,” admitted senior Ashley Uenishi, one of the editors-in-chief. “It’s my last book that I’m going to be working on.”
Uenishi, along with senior Neil Lu and junior Noelle Chan, has led the Ash-á-Wût staff through the long process of crafting the yearbook. With the help of the design editors, seniors Kay Lee and Tuyet Thai, the copy editor, junior Gianna Tran, and the photo editor, junior Cassy Liu, the staff created a timeless keepsake that fit into the yearbook’s theme – “We’ll Take It From Here”.
“[With the theme] we wanted to cover the quintessential Gab experience- sports, activities, clubs, etc.- and we wanted to present it in a subtly confident manner,” explained Lu. “We blended together a lot of traditional Gab yearbook concepts with original ones which we came up with this year to structure the yearbook in the best way possible.”
Over the course of almost eight months, the staff developed over 200 pages of content, capturing the unique perspectives of Gabrielino’s students and staff. Members conducted hundreds of interviews, diligently created spreads of photos, and designed the book to look the best it possibly could.
However, before this school year had even started, the seven editors had already started building the book. They spent three days together during the summer at Cal State University Long Beach for the Yearbooks at the Beach camp, watching presentations, participating in workshops, and pulling all-nighters in preparation for all the work that needed to be done.
“Yearbook camp cemented the editors’ relationship. The only thing we ever talked about was yearbook- the theme, what’s going to happen, how’s the copy going to go, how are the pictures going to go,” reminisced Tran. “The editors really learned how to rely on each other.”
Besides the seven editors, there were no other returnees to the class, with the rest of the 16 staff members being completely new. Despite a tricky adjusting period, the deadlines and pressure all caused the staff to grow closer together.
“I’m personally proud of [the new staff members] because while we were trying to figure things out, they were trying to learn everything and also adjusting to us,” Uenishi explained. “Because in the beginning, even [the editors] didn’t entirely know what we were doing.”
With contributions from the whole staff, this year’s book is a labor of love.
Yet even though the yearbook is finished, the staff’s work is far from over. They will work on developing the theme for next year’s book by watching advertisements and studying what might appeal to Gabrielino’s student body.
The staff also has the distribution of the yearbook to look forward to at the end of May.
“I’m excited to be able to see everything we’ve been working on actually printed out on paper physically,” Chan said with a smile. “It’s a really big accomplishment.”
