While many students claim that they only get a yearbook for their mother, it is something they will grow to appreciate as the years go by. 

There is a lot more than putting pictures on a page to create the yearbook, and with a staff of two this semester, things have been increasingly difficult. 

Yearbook staff members, Alli Lundgren and Ava Voigt, along with yearbook mentor Jessica Trier, started the semester finishing the yearbook from last year and have recently started working on the 2022-2023 yearbook. 

Trier has been the advisor for the North Polk yearbook since 2005, but these past few years have been more challenging than usual. 

“We have been a little backed up since Covid because Covid year I had three staff members and then we didn’t get to finish the book. And then next year’s class had to finish it, so we didn’t actually get the book back until January. We’ve been pushed back ever since Covid happened” explained Trier. 

Because it takes a full year to complete the yearbook, Covid-19 still has lasting impacts on the deadlines for the yearbook. Add only having two staff members, and suddenly the workload becomes a lot heavier within a shorter time period. 

Before Covid-19, Trier was used to having five to six students creating the yearbook, but now she has had to find ways to meet the same deadline with the limited number of students she has had. “Having two people limits who can take pictures, it limits the ideas and creativity creating it [yearbook], it limits how fast we can sometimes get things accomplished,” stated Trier. 

To keep up with schedule, Trier and the staff members have had to meet on weekends, after school and occasionally days during the summer. 

Voigt and Lundgren both joined yearbook this year because of their passion for photography. They both take turns attending school events to take pictures for the yearbook, but it has proven difficult to make it to every event with their differing schedules.

While they have never been on another yearbook staff, they agree that it has been a challenge to work on the yearbook, and would like more people to join second semester.