Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Greenspun Middle School yearbook wins national award

Click to enlarge photo

The cover of the award-winning Greenspun Jr. High School yearbook "Making Waves."

Teacher Jeff Wollard and the yearbook staff at Greenspun Junior High School have been awarded the National Scholastic Press Association's All-American award for the 2007-2008 school yearbook, "Making Waves."

It was the first time a junior high school in Nevada has received the award and to date is the highest level of recognition received at a junior high school.

The yearbook staff at Greenspun is made up of seventh and eighth graders who take the class as an elective.

"When we heard that no junior high had won the award before, we set out to win it," said Wollard.

A typical junior high yearbook is made up primarily of black and white collages printed on regular paper, with thick card-stock covers. The Greenspun yearbook is a high school-style yearbook, with glossy pages, color photographs and hard covers.

Wollard said that when he took on the yearbook class he wanted to do it right.

"It is my job to teach them strong journalistic principles," he said.

He wants to give them an idea of they could pursue as a career. At least two of his former students have gone on to be journalism majors at the University of Nevada, Reno.

At first, the students wanted to do the traditional collage-style yearbooks.

"A lot of the girls in the class, they are really into scrapbooking," Wollard said.

However, now that the yearbook class at Greenspun has seen last year's hard work pay off, they want to continue to produce high-quality yearbooks.

To start on the new year's book, Wollard has students look at the yearbook from the year before.

"As a class, we talk about what we like about it and what changes we want to make," he said.

He also has a stack of yearbooks from other schools.

"I use most of them as examples of what we don't want our yearbook to look like," he said.

Wollard also is strict with his students. Almost all of his students earn straight A's.

"I act as the editor," he said, "and I have to trust that all the students will be on task without me watching them constantly."

Now that the school has won a national award and the yearbook staff has a boost in confidence, Wollard said, he wants to turn it up a notch for the 2008-2009 yearbook.

He is aiming for even more awards next year.

Diana Cox can be reached at 990-8183 or [email protected].

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