Tuesday, February 02, 1999
High school yearbook captures memories
Mount Healthy's wins awards
BY BERNIE MIXON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
MOUNT HEALTHY — More than just a collection of memories, high school yearbooks are serving as a reflection of a generation.
So it is with Mount Healthy High school's yearbook Zem Zem. Published since 1929, the yearbook has been recognized nationally for the past three years for its quality.
Unique perspective
“Yearbooks are more of a historical reference,”said Don Burns, yearbook staff adviser. “You see the world and national news, and get a frame of reference for the year.”
The collection of pictures, memories and ads in year books is fast becoming a printed history that people have come to cherish. Some now use the Internet to find long-lost yearbooks.
“It is their connection to their past,” said Larry Cromwell, 50, who manages a Web site (www.yearbookfinder.com) that tries to locate yearbooks. “It is a key to understanding how people thought at a different time. If you go through and look at yearbooks, you can see trends in dress, speech and attitude.”
From the pages of Zem Zem's inaugural edition, authors entreat readers to “Come! Refresh thyself at the well of memory! Drink the water of the holy well of Zem Zem and live again those happy days at Mt. Healthy High.”
Current events
Named after an Arabian well, Zem Zem has evolved from a traditional yearbook filled with a collection of student pictures to documenting real-life events such as the crowning of Miss America and the death of Mother Teresa.
The student editors' work has been recognized by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA), earning a Gold Medalist Certificate the past three years.
About 40 percent of high school yearbooks across the country receive a Gold Medalist Certificate. CSPA judges yearbooks only for schools that are members of the association.
Mandy Garza, 17, a senior, has worked on the yearbook for three years and now serves as editor. Mandy has learned the importance of deadlines, and her ability as a writer has improved.
The yearbook is “more like a memory book for students to remember their peers and things that happened to them as a class,” she said, adding the national recognition “really showed the work we put into it.”
On the walls of the yearbook office, murals and signatures serve as their own kind of historical markers.
The names remain
“In June when we finish the book, the students get to sign the walls,” Mr. Burns said. “We have brothers and sisters up there. We have twins. (Former students) come back and look” for old signatures.
And it's those same kinds of imprints that make yearbooks so popular.
“A yearbook is a funny thing,” Mr. Cromwell said. “If you have it sitting on a shelf in the house, you don't pay attention to it. If you don't have it and start thinking about friends and times past, you want it again.”
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