Southwest students win national award for unified yearbook

The heartfelt determination of Southwest High School students to include everyone in the yearbook process has resulted in national recognition for the Silver Hawks.
 
Southwest Talon yearbook staff members earned an Innovation Pacemaker Award at this spring’s Journalism Education Association/National Scholastic Press Association national convention. Often referred to as the Pulitzer Prize of scholastic journalism, Pacemaker Awards are given to school journalism teams who showcase excellence in their newspaper, yearbook, magazine, broadcasting or online projects.
 
Southwest received the Innovation Pacemaker for being one of the first schools in the country to publish a unified yearbook created by students with intellectual disabilities in partnership with peer student-journalists. They printed their first unified publication in 2022-23 and distributed their second volume this spring.
 
Southwest junior Kaylie said she is proud to have both traditional and unified yearbooks at school. She was on the inaugural unified staff and became a unified editor this past year.
 
“It was amazing,” Kaylie said. “It was my first time ever being in yearbook, and I feel like this is the best way to go through it. I’ve been in unified since my freshman year, so it’s been fun to do this with kids that I’ve met through unified. It’s just been a great opportunity.”
 
Senior Chloe also said it was fun to work on the publication both years.
 
“It helped me get more comfortable talking to people, since I had to get out of my comfort zone and go to different classrooms and interview more people,” Chloe said. “It helped with social skills and helped me be a leader, and it also helped all of my teammates.”
 
The unified yearbook team produced 40 pages of material for a separate book each year. Their content was later included in the 300-plus-page traditional school yearbook to create a unified publication.
 
Jackie and Mallory both gathered a large amount of content for the 2022-23 unified yearbook. Both seniors returned this year to develop new material for volume two.
 
“I’ve liked the whole experience and seeing how it’s done,” Mallory said. “I like how there’s a lot of teamwork with the pictures and pages. I like doing yearbook with other people.”
 
“I like the environment and how we get to do different pages that we choose,” Jackie said.
 
Journalism teacher Brandi Benson said staff members wanted to add yearbook to a long list of successful unified activities at school. Students can also participate in unified council, club, book club, physical education, choir, track and field, bowling and swimming.
 
“The coolest part is giving opportunities to more kids,” Benson said. “If we didn’t unify it, there would be a demographic of students that wouldn’t get the opportunity to be a part of it. I think it’s important to find ways to unify as many extracurricular activities as we can to give kids a chance.”
 
Unified yearbook takes place during a 45-minute portion of the school’s fourth-block class period. Students learn how to use camera equipment, upload photos to computers and format photos into yearbook-sized images. They also develop communication skills such as speaking clearly and asking journalism-style questions.
 
The seven members of the 2022-23 unified staff interviewed dozens of students and faculty. They wrote stories about marching band and unified activities and created spreads on favorite books, pets and movies.
 
Eight staff members used a similar team-based approach to build the 2023-24 pages. They produced spreads about softball, the annual Senior Sunrise event and many unified activities. They also interviewed Silver Hawks about their favorite music, sports teams and manicure designs.
 
Juniors Mary Beth and Elliana both decided to join the 2023-24 staff after hearing positive reviews from their classmates. They said it was one of the best choices they could have made.
 
“It was amazing,” Mary Beth said. “It was a great experience. It was really cool being able to help design our school’s yearbook and learn a bunch of new things, but at the same time making a lot of great relationships and having fun.”
 
“It was truly amazing,” Elliana said. “I liked seeing all of the partners and journalists grow throughout the year and watching them become more confident in their abilities.”
 
Jackie said she was happy when the yearbooks arrived on campus. She said it was nice to see the pages go from concepts on a computer screen to printed copies in their hands.
 
“It was exciting because we took a lot of time to do it,” Jackie said. “It was on the computer, so it was nice to actually see a paper book.”
 
Benson said students were also proud when they learned they were unified trailblazers in the United States.
 
“It has been really fun,” Benson said. “We did not know we were the only ones in the country to have one until we had finished it and sent our whole book off to be judged. We had multiple people reach out and say, ‘We’ve contacted other yearbook publishing companies and no one’s ever done one before.’ That was pretty cool.”
 
Mary Beth said unified yearbook will continue to provide heartfelt experiences to all Silver Hawks in the future.
 
“I think with yearbook we’re able to learn a lot about writing skills and taking pictures and all of the great skills that we learn in class, but probably most importantly it’s about making relationships and how to work well with others,” Mary Beth said. “It’s about all of the things that unified teaches us about being inclusive.”
 
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