The people behind the book

The Lair works to create 2016 yearbook

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Kyle Gehman

The Lair’s yearbooks from 2009 until 2015. Over the years the size of the books have grown.

by Kyle Gehman, Staff Writer

Something that can last forever bringing back memories every time people look back into it, a high school yearbook. The yearbook staff spends countless hours each year working to create something that students can look back to after they graduate to remember all the times they experienced that year.

“Being apart of the creation of the yearbook is so great, because you are wrapping up so many of the year’s memories into a single keepsake,” sophomore staff member Megan Marshall said. “All of the dedication and and hard work the staff puts in throughout the school year definitely pays off with the end with the end product.”

There are three editors, senior editor-in-chief Autumn Corbin, senior assistant editor  Diana Guerrero and assistant editor junior Christian Mouton as well as 11 other students on staff.

“My favorite part about being on staff at Leander in particular is that we actually have fun making it,” Corbin said. “Other schools yearbooks have already made it to the top, we’re on the way and I think this year we have finally made it.”

What some people don’t know is that yearbook is a class that you must apply to be in and be able to commit to spending many hours outside of class working on the book. Students are required to spend at least three hours a week outside of class time working on their spread. This does not count taking photos of school events for their spreads and the hours must be spent while at school not at home. They also have five deadlines throughout the year and on those nights they spend up to 5-7 hours after school working.

“I like doing the hours,” junior staff member Ella Taurins said. “At times things can be very stressful like when we have deadlines but I know that it will be worth it in the long run.”

The Lair has won many awards over the past years, but last year they won two national awards for their book Blueprints and are currently being critiqued for two others. The Blueprints theme was based off the building of the new science wing and changing the numbering of rooms. This year the theme is We Are Leander. Over the summer the staff attended two camps one at University of Texas at Austin and one at Texas A&M University to plan who would do which pages, decide on a theme and cover and to learn new styles for the book.

“The camps are beyond helpful with regards to planning,” Marshall said. “We are able to get a ton of ideas out there, the extra mini classes assisted too in that they gave us all better approaches to what we were hoping to accomplish with the book.”

The book We Are Leander is available to order now on Balfour and costs $60 but by October 31st it will go up to $65.

Being apart of the creation of the yearbook is so great.

— Megan Marshall