Yearbook for High Schoolers

As we come to the close of the 2020-2021 school year, it is clear: This has been the most challenging year ever to be a student, teacher, or school staffer. And, though the end of every school year is bittersweet, this one may be the bitterest.

So, who would want to buy a yearbook??

For many reasons, the usual end-of-the-year excitement around yearbooks is missing:

• In a year of economic hardship, many families don’t have the extra money to afford yearbooks.
• For some, the idea of purchasing a memento of this “Worst. Year. Ever.” is unappealing.
• Remote students may not be interested in a commemoration of something they didn’t feel a part of.
• And, anyway, did anything worth remembering even happen in school this year?

But the truth is, yes, in many ways, this is the year to remember. Who among us will ever forget The Lost Year, the year that Covid stole from all of us, and for some took much more? But at the same time, we all had our first Zoom, our first masked Thanksgiving, and sooooo muuuuuch hand sanitizer.

We know that, in time, today’s high schoolers will look back at this as the year that changed everything. In a year in which we have been deprived of each other’s smiles — of seeing our friend’s faces — it is more important than ever to turn the pages of a keepsake album filled with the happy visages of our classmates, teachers, and staff, and even to be reminded of the absences: the Prom That Never Was, the Homecoming Game With No Fans, the “Virtual” Graduation.

One day, we will all long to bring out our albums, to show our children or grandchildren, or to reminisce with old friends about “that year,” the one we’ll never forget, and the Class of 2021. We just don’t know it yet.

To that end, we are asking kind benefactors to donate an individual yearbook — or a handful of yearbooks — to be given out to deserving students or staff members as awards for a Lincoln High job well done, when the job was at its toughest. In doing so, we hope to create some yearbook buzz —”Did you see that one page?!” — to generate additional yearbook sales, which in turn will help support yearbook resources and materials for making great Lincoln High yearbooks for years to come.

Please donate a yearbook to a deserving Lincoln High student or staff member as we say goodbye to 2020–2021.

Thank you.