still a member, I had doubts about being able to fit it in this year. French Club:
primarily social but I would occasionally be required to participate in programs at
meetings and that would take time. Declamation and debate: soon to be a more
poised and confident 18, perhaps I would have a better chance to excel in these
endeavors, although they would consume a major slice of time. With all this, would
there be time for any kind of a
social life. An academic life. I
was confident there would be, but
I did not foresee the rat race.
Yearbook without question
was the predominant focus of my
Senior year. Fortunately, I had
made a head start during the
summer by establishing a theme,
inventing ideas as to photographic
style and roughly designing a title
page and other format features. It
would be this aspect of the
yearbook process - appearance -
where I would exercise my
primary leadership and energies.
Miss Sowerby was the de facto
managing editor, the one who
oversaw the operation as a whole,
for she had the requisite
experience whereas I did not.
Early on I formed my staff
from students who applied plus
one who accepted my invitation to
serve as assistant editor, namely Ann Hausman, who was bright and good with words.
There were 24 of us, including four faculty advisers. The main effort, however, fell
to perhaps a third of that number. Ann supervised and performed much of the writing;
the business manager relieved me of an area in which I was least talented; the
category editors, such as classes, organizations, sports, were indispensable for
conducting the liaison work that I did not have time to do.
Representatives of our publisher came to Allegany in September for a design
conference. For two class periods, we discussed concepts and, to the extent we could
envision them, details of format and style. We concluded with an understanding that
the 1939 Allegewi would be a “different," a “modern" yearbook. I was elated,
because it was on the basis of my naive bragging that I could produce an
84
Yearbook title page. The scrapbook theme, only partially
realized, was an attempt to create an Allegany High School
yearbook that was “different".
