School yearbooks headed for extinction

By LEWIS W. DIUGUID
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
The door to the darkroom stays closed in Alice Bennett's class at Washington High School in Kansas City, Kan.
Her students now use digital cameras to cover school events. Also, the hardbound Hatchet yearbooks that I had bought years ago are as obsolete now as vinyl albums.
Beginning last year, DVDs replaced yearbooks. Bennett invited me back to the school recently. She wanted me to see what's new, just as she had gotten me into Washington High to study with the Class of 1999 for four years to learn what it was like to be a teen and teacher.
Times, they keep a-changing.
Banks of computers fill the classroom space. Some of Bennett's students work alone downloading and editing what they've shot. Some work in groups, marrying music with the footage.
Lack of demand
Something very basic forced the change from tradition -- cost and lack of demand. The cost of yearbooks like the ones I helped produce 36 years ago in high school have risen to about 50, causing the demand for them to plummet.
"The fewer you sell, the more it costs," Bennett said. "The more it costs, the fewer you sell. It just got to be a spiral."
Some of the other high schools in the district have switched to DVDs. So have the University of Missouri-Columbia, the University of Central Missouri and other colleges.
Each year Washington High was running a 15,000 to 20,000 debt in yearbook costs because of poor sales. Ten to 20 years ago students purchased 1,000 to 1,200 copies of the Hatchet. Toward the end selling 125 to 150 was a stretch.
Meghan Shuck, 17, a senior and a senior editor for the new Hatchet, said students can get the DVD for 15.
Bennett said she sold out of the one produced last year and had to order more.
Realistic
Marquis Brown and Dante W. Walton, both 16-year-old sophomores, showed me footage they'd shot and edited. Dante's was of the football team; Marquis's was of girl's volleyball. The color, motion and music made what they produced more lively than pictures on printed pages. Bennett's students re-created events that were strikingly real.
"Everybody is going to watch it," Dante said. "It just makes me feel good."
Marquis added, "I love it because it's easy to me."
Jose Cervantes, a 16-year-old junior, and Yvonne Her, a 16-year-old sophomore, showed footage of a teachers' dodge-ball game.
"It was crazy," Jose said. "The teachers are funny. You had to watch out when the balls were going so you don't get hit."
Students like Keaton Singleton, a 16-year-old junior, and Olivia Moore, a 15-year-old sophomore, shot commercials of area businesses. No fees are charged. It's just a way to connect merchants to the school.
Tattoos
The class gave Jamel McClain, a 17-year-old senior, an opportunity to capture a trend among young people -- tattoos. Males have names put on their arms. Females tend to have tattoos on their lower backs. Each generated interesting footage, Jamel said.
"It's stuff that we like to see," said DiShon Lee, a 17-year-old senior, who has shot footage of "grills," or gold in students' dental work.
Some students said they miss the yearbook. It's a lasting journal, enabling students' friends to write memorable things in it. DVDs scratch and get ruined.
Bennett said she can envision a future in which the production will go on the Web.
That future isn't farfetched.
Lewis W. Diuguid is a member of the Kansas City Star's Editorial Board. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.