Yearbook? More Like Your Book

Founder’s Day is such a beautiful and amazing day in the CB community. There’s tons of fun, excitement, and beautiful yearbooks being handed around for all to sign. Every year, a team is built to create and design Christian Brothers’ yearbook. Most of us just see the final product, but what goes on behind the hardcover?

Yearbook is a class run by juniors and seniors, directed by Ms. Chrys Cassetta. Ms Cassetta is in her 13th year as the Yearbook Adviser for CB. Though she has worked with 13 different yearbook groups, she says that this year’s group stands among the best.

“This group is one of the best that I’ve had in a long time because they help each other, and they always go the extra mile for the class and each other,” affirms Ms. Cassetta.

Many students responded with “thank you”s and “aww”s for Ms. Cassetta, and it became clear that Advanced Journalism was more than a class — it is a team and a family. It’s obvious that everyone in the class has an enormous amount of love and respect for one another.

Taking a deep breath and seeming to be holding back tears, Francisco Mejia (’17) shared his feelings for the class.

“You know, it’s hard to put into words how much I love this class,” he comments. “It’s a great bunch of people. I love working with them, and there’s definitely never a dull day.”

Beah Cruz (’17) similarly shared her respect for yearbook.

“I love this class so much,” said Beah. “It’s kind of a break from the rest of my classes. It’s a stress reliever; it’s soothing.”

However, like any loving relationship, there are a lot of responsibilities and stresses that tag along. In yearbook, the students are assigned a set amount of pages that they must complete by a certain deadline. Francisco is in charge of all of the CB holidays and says that it’s not always sunshine and rainbows.

“I’m not going to lie, I had a slow start…in the first quarter, Ms. Cassetta cut my Halloween page, but it’s okay because I’m bouncing back in the third and fourth quarters — and making up for my missing page with an amazing Christmas page,” he said. “The most difficult part for me is taking pictures because sometimes people are rude or don’t want to take pictures.”

Francisco explained that he finds his responsibilities especially difficult when the student body shows a lack of spirit, but putting the pages together is a much simpler — but still difficult — task.

“We have Lifetouch that helps with creating pages because of their advanced technology. So creating the pages is not difficult; it’s just a process. A lot of tedious work [goes] into it, making sure everything is perfect.”

Francisco gave the Talon the key for staying on task and getting work done.

“My secret is my raw almonds, which just get me through the day. Whenever I’m hungry, I just pull these out and I think what I have to do then — I do it.”

Maile Shelley (’17) is in charge of multiple athletic pages and shared some of her greatest mountains to overcome.

“The most difficult part of my job is going out and taking pictures of all the sports. It’s hard to get that perfect action shot.”

“I absolutely hate deadlines,” she continued. “Deadlines are awful, but I just want to help wherever and whenever I can.”

Beah — who’s in charge of superlatives, women’s golf, and more — chose to rant on her issues.

“It’s hard to work with people. And to rely of them to get things done, or to take pictures, and having people actually show up are really the hardest parts,” she stated. “Also, deadlines and creating the actual pages are very time consuming, but it’s all worth it when that final page is done, the books are printed, and I can finally see myself on the women’s golf page. That’s the reason I took this class in the first place.”

The yearbook is more than it appears. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication — just ask any of our yearbook staff. Blood, sweat, and tears are put into the magnificent work of art we all receive at the end of the year, and all due respect to those in room 602. Because of this group, it’s no longer the year of the rooster around CB — it’s the year of the book.