With everything switched to being online this year, there is still one tradition that remains constant: the yearbook.

Yearbook is a club at the high school that meets every week to help put together and organize the school yearbook, The Murivian. The club meets during X-block and after school on Wednesdays.

Production for the yearbook started in Sept. 2020. Sophomore Julius Pieper, a staff member, said that the book is coming along well.

“There are two steps. First is to collect everything, all of the pictures and information. We are now entering the second step of putting everything together, which is often more complicated because we have to take thousands of pictures and put them in one by one,” Pieper said.

According to Pieper, a big goal for the staff this year is to make sure that they show all aspects of life at the high school. Pieper said that putting together an entire yearbook may seem like a daunting task, but he loves the challenge.

“When I first joined, I just wanted to create something and let my creativity play. But now I’m having so much fun because you have so many things to take care of and look out for that there’s a bit of a challenge in it that makes it rewarding,” Pieper said.

In previous years, the yearbook team used photos of students from school picture day to put in the yearbook. Because COVID-19 canceled picture day this year, photography teacher and club adviser, Lori Lynn, said that she is forced to come up with new alternatives to make sure everybody has a picture in the book.

“Do we want everyone to send us a selfie? Logistically that might be tough. Do we hold a school picture day? Not everyone is necessarily able to come to a picture day right now, so how do we deal with that, because it has to be equitable,” Lynn said. “It has to be fair so that every single student has to be included, so that’s where we run into some issues.”

According to Lynn, it is unclear how this problem will be solved, but the staff is working hard to make sure that everyone is represented. With this year being so different, Lynn said that she does not want the club to lose its strong sense of community.

“Last year, when we went into remote learning, the yearbook was my only real community. I didn’t meet with my students because we didn’t have any required class meetings. But from the very beginning, I met with my yearbook staff every week in the evening, and we got very close,” Lynn said. “It was something that I looked forward to. That was a dark time, and just having that group was very special for all of us.”

A big part of fostering this sense of community comes from collaboration, which senior Amber Mickelson said she enjoys about the club.

“Everybody is always working together and everyone is always looking for input on designs for their page,” Mickelson said. “Just being able to openly talk to one another and just have the ability to collaborate to put together something nice is great.”

Right now yearbook is only a club, but Lynn said she would love to see the yearbook become a class.

“No plans are set, but I would love to teach it as a class because I think there are a lot of learning opportunities out there. A student would be able to dedicate a semester to the project rather than just their spare time,” Lynn said.

Whether in a class setting or not, working on the yearbook has been a high point for students like Mickelson.

“For one, it’s about leaving your mark on the school,” Mickelson said. “You want to be able to create something that is going to be remembered, and that you can go back to in 10 or 20 years and say, ‘oh that was my high school, and I helped to make this book full of memories.’”