Learning professional skills, making friends that become like family and documenting local history through photos and feature writing is part of the magic of being on yearbook and newspaper staff in high school.
It’s a backstage pass to the entire school year, blending creativity and a dash of school spirit.
And at Village Christian Academy, working on the yearbook involves more than just classroom time, including the summer, nights and weekends. But the entire staff will tell you it is worth it.
“It’s also allowed me to see all of the aspects of our school with a different perspective,” said Caroline Gardner, a 17-year-old rising senior and the design editor for the upcoming year.
Village Christian Academy, a private K-12 Christian school in Fayetteville, has had a yearbook since the school was established in 1988. Jill Gunter, who also serves as the elementary school guidance counselor, is going on her 10th year as the yearbook adviser.
“A yearbook is the historical reference for the school year,” Gunter said. “Nowhere else is the year kept in print to be used as a reference tool. The content of a yearbook can surface years, even decades later.”
Editor-in-Chief Nolan Pait, also a 17-year-old rising senior, said the yearbook is a tradition for students — one he wanted to be a part of since he was in kindergarten. He said it is important to try to make sure each student and teacher is represented.
“We have sections for sports, student life and whatever is happening,” Pait said. “We want everyone to be in more than just their class photo.”
To make sure that happens, each student in the yearbook class has a role to play, and there has to be good communication among the staff.
“Everyone has to pitch in for the whole task and not the individual jobs,” Gunter said. “We really try to make sure that everyone’s strengths are used. If a student loves writing, they have an opportunity to shine through interviews, caption writing and producing the copy. If a student loves photography, that can be practiced every day. If they prefer being creative and being a part of page design, they can do that, too.”
The Village yearbook, called Excalibur, is self-supported and covers all costs through business and senior tribute advertisements and book sales. Students spend the summer before classes begin selling ads to help fund the yearbook program. And once the school year starts, the staff is busy covering a range of activities, including events, academics, clubs and athletics.
Gunter says the lessons students learn in the class are ones that will serve them beyond their time at Village Christian Academy.
This is why students who are accepted into the class have to excel at organization and need to be able to do their best in the honors-level course. Students are chosen for the class following an application, interview and teacher recommendation process. Those who spend four years in yearbook, or another student media class at Village Christian Academy, are eligible to join the Quill and Scroll Honor Society and have a special cord for graduation.
“Students are the photographers, the reporters, the writers, the page designers, the content editors and the publicists,” Gunter said. “It’s one of the hardest classes here. In the publication world, a deadline isn’t flexible, so this class doesn’t allow for late work or work that wasn’t completed. A student can’t get an extension in this class or fail to turn something in on time.”
The yearbook class is also part of both the North Carolina Scholastic Media Association (NCSMA) and the National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA). Each year, members of the yearbook staff attend Journalism Day, or “J-Day,” in the fall at UNC-Chapel Hill. They also compete in the NCSMA statewide media contests, and for national awards through the NSPA and through Varsity Yearbook, a national yearbook publisher. Students receive critiques for the work, which they apply to the yearbook the following year.
“To get better, we get a full critique cover to cover,” Gunter said. “Excalibur has ranked in the top 10% of Varsity Yearbooks for three years and our goal is to get to 1%.”
Five students including Pait, Gardner, senior Kenzie Maultsby, junior Sarah Chason and sophomore Natalie Smith also attended the Varsity Georgia Yearbook Expo in Athens, Ga., in mid-July.
Cumberland County Schools’ Pine Forest High School is also home to an award-winning yearbook. The Pine Forest Pifonoca has been published for 59 years, even during the Covid-19 pandemic. Like at Village Christian Academy, students interested in being in the student-run organization have to apply to be accepted.
“I promote students based on ability and student interest,” said yearbook adviser Kevin Weaver, who also teaches English at Pine Forest. “For the most part, however, the staff runs and manages itself. We have an editor- or editors-in-chief, section managers, photographers and regular staff members.”
Weaver said that students take their roles very seriously and provide mentorship for new staff members.
“Students learn what goes into creating a publication, including writing, photography, grammar, publications law, layout and design, communication, marketing and so many other things,” Weaver said. “Almost every year I have a senior from the staff talk to me about how being on yearbook impacted their learning in another class.”
Over his 26 years of advising student publications, students have told him the experience made them a better writer, more outspoken and more detail-oriented. Along with the hands-on experience, Weaver said it is important for a school to have a yearbook because it serves as the historical record of the academic year.
The rigor of the class is also evident at Pine Forest, where the yearbook staff belongs to the NSPA and Quill and Scroll. They also submit for national critiquing and competitions.
“We have been recognized four times in the last eight years by our publishers with a place in their ‘Lookbooks,’ which present the ‘best of’ and examples for other schools to follow,” Weaver said. The yearbook staff has also risen from a silver or 2nd place grade to a gold or 1st place level.
Fayetteville Academy, a secular K-12 private school, also has an award-winning yearbook along with a relatively new newspaper called The Eagle Post. The newspaper was started as a journalism club in 2022 with five students, according to newspaper adviser Kristin Ballew. This year, the newspaper will be produced in an accredited class for the first time, with over 30 students and two sections.
“The newspaper had such a positive impact on the community in the last two years that I presented it to ARC (the school Academic Review Committee) and encouraged a technology credit for graduation,” Ballew said.
In the course of producing the newspaper and yearbook publications, students learn design and editing software and photography, writing and editing skills.
Yearbook adviser Amanda Gillis said some students have come in with no experience or expectations, but have discovered their passions within the class. “It’s like they’ve found a new world,” Gillis said.
Rising senior Bailey Lutynski will serve as the editor-in-chief this year of the newspaper and the yearbook. She said she looks forward to overseeing both groups, but wants to pair interests with roles.
“I want to see what everyone likes to do and what their interests are before assigning,” Lutynski said.
This past year’s yearbook was awarded the Gallery of Excellence award from the Varsity publishing company. The recognition means that it was sent to other schools, showcasing Fayetteville Academy students’ work.
Across Cumberland County, student media plays a crucial role in both the development of students and documentation of the wider community. Students and advisors alike point to the platform it gives for student voices, building skills for future career paths, enhancing academic performance and nurturing the next generation of informed citizens.
Ashlyn Young joined yearbook staff during her senior year at Fayetteville Academy. She loved writing a column — called “Around the Town” — in the newspaper. Young, who graduated this spring, will be attending Campbell University in the fall. While she doesn’t plan to study journalism, the experience of working on the yearbook left its mark.
“I spent 13 years here, including kindergarten, and wanted to leave something permanent behind,” Young said.
Editor’s note: Jami McLaughlin is the parent of students who attend Village Christian Academy but are not involved in the yearbook class.
Read CityView Magazine’s “The Back To School Issue” August 2025 e-edition here.
