What Valdosta High School is

to football, Fayette County High School is to yearbooks.

Travel around the nation to

hang out with yearbook "people" and they will know Fayette County

High's "Golden Memories."

This book is not just big,

but it has a big reputation to go with it.

The nation's three main

collegiate journalism societies have lauded "Golden Memories"

and its advisor, Penny Pridgeon, with a string of honors and awards for

more than a decade.

The 2001 edition, at nearly

500 pages, was the largest high school yearbook ever produced - in

the nation. It weighed nearly seven pounds per book. It arrived on two

loaded tractor-trailer trucks.

The 2003 edition of "Golden

Memories" pales in comparison, at just 432 pages and barely six pounds.

But it achieved the highest honors yet for Fayette County High, being

named "Best Yearbook in the U.S." by the American Scholastic

Press Association, as well as winning an award for "Best Advertising

Section."

The 2003 book, at 432 pages

one of the largest high school yearbooks in the nation, also received

a gold medal from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association and a superior

rating from the Georgia Scholastic Press Association.

All the awards are taken in

stride by the 20 or so staffers who toll away daily to produce one of

America's biggest yearbooks, working out of a suite of offices inside

the FCHS main building complete with about 20 Macintosh computers outfitted

with the latest Adobe design and photo editing software.

Pridgeon is quick to point

out that all the "extras" are funded by the annual staff. The

class gets no additional money from the school board.

That's why the cost of

the book, base price $60 and climbing as the school year advances, continues

to rise. It will cost $116,000 just to print the 2004 edition, a slim

416-pager that gets shipped off to the publisher this month.

"This is the first year

we've been 100 percent digital," Pridgeon said proudly. "But

we're having trouble getting the pages sent out on the Internet."

A batch of completed pages

ready for plating that went out the day before Christmas break came back

� after New Year's, she said.

But that's nothing compared

to how far the process has come since Pridgeon took over in 1987. Nearly

from that first edition, "Golden Memories" has been on the radar

scope, winning awards and racking up accolades for innovations that are

now industry norm.

Student-dominated advertising,

for example. And full-process color throughout. And the latest: A CD-ROM

supplement that was so impressive to the folks at Jostens, the nation's

largest yearbook publisher, they solicited Pridgeon and her charges to

write the "how to" book for other schools wanting to do it themselves.

Editor Sara Keene, a senior

who's spent all four years of high school working toward this moment,

carefully oversees the final design and photo selection of the 2004 book.

The daughter of a high school yearbook advisor at another school in another

county, Keene is torn about the prospects of moving out into a world where

yearbooks, in all honesty, just aren't that big a deal.

After all, "Golden Memories"

already ranks bigger and better than most big college yearbooks, Pridgeon

said.

"I think what makes our

book special is that it's classy and traditional, but it's also

modern and not afraid to try new things," said Keen. "We stick

with what we know."

Just one thing irks Pridgeon,

year after year: The volume number. The 2004 book will be labeled "Volume

54," since the original Fayette County High yearbook was published

in 1950.

But "Volume 1" was

actually called "Golden Memory," she said.

"It was the first one,

so it wasn't until the next year they started calling it 'Golden

Memories'," said Pridgeon.

That oversight doesn't

seem to bother the judges.

Back

to News Home Page |