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For the first episode of 2021, host Jim Jordan interviews JEA Rising Star Heather Rice, from One School of the Arts in Longwood, Florida. Rising Star trophies are awarded to advisers who are in their first five years of advising and have shown great dedication to scholastic journalism. Heather took over a yearbook program that had previously been run by parents, and in only five years helped bring it to an award-winning level.

In this episode, host Jim Jordan chats with November 2020 Adviser of Note Emily Arnold. Listen to her story about how she built two different award-winning publications programs and how she is coping with in-person teaching and advising this year.

On today’s episode, host Jim Jordan discusses the ways yearbook staffs continue to manage, create and sometimes even thrive in the midst of a pandemic. He spoke with five yearbook advisers from four high schools all over the country to listen to their stories about yearbook during COVID-19. Ashley Dias, Americas High School, El Paso, Texas Susan Colyer, Southside High School, Fort Smith, Arkansas Kaitlin Beaudet and Michelle Kuebler, Williamsville North High School, Williamsville, New York Hillary Currier, Tigard High School, Tigard, Oregon

Susan McNulty became a yearbook adviser early in her career as a teacher, but budget cuts tore her away from the role. Years later, she took over the J.W. Mitchell yearbook program the same year her daughter served as editor-in-chief (the outgoing adviser had assigned the roles before McNulty took over). She took over a strong yearbook program, and books under her leadership have won recognition from all over, including the All-American from NSPA, Gold Medalist from CSPA, and All-Florida from FSPA. In this episode, McNulty and podcast host Jim Jordan discuss her career, her classroom, and the pressure of finishing a yearbook while the world grapples with the coronavirus. You can learn more in the accompanying blog post on the Walsworth Yearbooks blog!

Susan Massy has been advising yearbooks for more than 30 years, and most of that has been at her current school. Yearbooks produced under her guidance have won many awards. In this interview with Jim Jordan, Massy discusses how much she struggled her first year, what made her come back to a second year, and the one big thing that made her yearbook experience better. In this interview, she recalled how she learned that yearbooks can be a true journalistic endeavor.   In the interview, she shares how inspiring her students can be, and how much she loves watching them be creative and problem-solve.  Her big advice for fellow yearbook advisers is: “We need to learn to coach, not just manage.” You can’t have an interview in 2020 without addressing what a crazy year it’s been. Massy and Jordan discuss the ways the impactful year has affected her yearbook. When they learned that spring sports were cancelled, they replaced it with COVID-19 coverage. Watching her students juggle all the changes helped Massy identify who would be her leaders for the 2021 school year. As the staff prepares for the 2021 book, they’re having what Massy calls both “freakout moments” and “aha moments.” Massy says their biggest challenge at the moment is putting together a yearbook ladder. They’ve increased their summer coverage, and are crowdsourcing for both photos and story ideas. They’re using several different mediums to collect these from the student body.   Massy shared her predictions for the 2021 yearbook. “I think our yearbook will have more first-person stories than we’ve ever had. I think we’ll have more people writing for us or with us than we ever have. So much of the content is going to have to come from beyond the staff.” They’ll be letting preconceived notions of what a yearbook “should be” fall away, and allowing this year’s book to take a new form that works with the current situation.   

2020 has been an odd year for everyone. We've all had to learn to navigate brand-new challenges. For Michelle Shue and her yearbook staff at Davie County High School in Mocksville, North Carolina. Like many schools around the country, they didn't have much warning when they learned they wouldn't be returning to the classroom. With their final deadline approaching, Shue and her staff buckled down and submitted half their book's pages in a two-week window!

Kathy Beers, from Timber Creek High School in Fort Worth, Texas, exudes creativity. She’s known for always having ideas, and her successful yearbook marketing tactics have been shared with schools all over the country. In this episode, host Jim Jordan talks to Kathy about her roundabout journey to yearbook and where she gets all her great ideas.

We're excited to introduce you to the March Adviser of Note! Johnathan Dixon is the yearbook adviser at Corsicana High School in Corsicana, Texas. His staff is known for their incredible photography skills, and it's not unusual for them to place in the Walsworth Yearbooks Photo Contest.  In this episode, host Jim Jordan talks photography, building a yearbook program from the ground up, and the journey that brought him to Corsicana High. 

Brad Cook, yearbook adviser at Gresham High School in Gresham, Oregon, is a bona fide graphic designer. He teaches graphic design, digital photography and yearbook.  Before becoming a teacher, he was a graphic designer at many places, including Nike – and he does his design work despite being colorblind! He’s passionate about typography – you can catch his session with Jim at the Nashville JEA Convention this March – and all things design. In this episode, Brad and host Jim Jordan take a deep dive on great design and creating an incredible yearbook.

In October 2019, Har-Ber High School in Springdale, Arkansas, and Meridian High School in Maycomb, Illinois, were selected as the winners of Walsworth Yearbooks’ Level Up contest. The prize package, worth over $3,500, includes a visit by Jim Jordan and Mike Taylor, CJE, to work with their staffs, editors and adviser. In early January, Jordan visited Karla Sprague, CJE, and her staff at Har-Ber High School and shared his experience.

In this episode, Jim honors three of Walsworth’s six advisers named a 2019 JEA Rising Star! Listen to his interview with Vanessa Martinez of El Dorado High School in El Paso, Texas; Samantha Lasarow of El Camino Real High School in Woodland Heights, California; and Bridgette Norris of Boone High School in Orland, Florida. Be sure to listen to the previous episode to hear Jim’s Rising Stars interviews with Leigh Rogers, Angie Wolfe and Dan Sidwell.

In this episode, host Jim Jordan honors three of Walsworth's six advisers named a 2019 JEA Rising Star! Listen to his interview with Leigh Rogers of Hermann High School, Missouri; Angie Wolfe of Burke High School in Omaha, Nebraska; and Dan Sidwell of Freedom High School in Tampa, Florida.  Check back next week as Jim completes his Rising Stars interviews with Vanessa Martinez, Samantha Lasarow and Bridgette Norris. 

Darren Thomas has been teaching for years, but never advised a yearbook until the 2019 school year. As a new teacher at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California, he was looking for a way to feel more connected to his new school. He leaned on his editors that first year, and the staff created an award-winning book. In his second year, Thomas and his staff have the difficult task of covering a school year that includes a tragic event – a school shooting Nov. 14, 2019 left two students dead. He discusses that monumental task and yearbook life in general with host Jim Jordan. 

We already knew Becky Tate, CJE, is amazing. She's been at Shawnee Mission North High School in Mission, Kansas, for 31 years and many of her yearbook students have gone on to become journalism advisers themselves.  Now that her awesomeness is being recognized in a new way - she was just named JEA's 2019 H.L. Hall Yearbook Adviser of the Year - we're celebrating her by re-releasing Jim's interview with Becky from earlier this school year. Jim even reached out to Becky after the announcement and they recorded a bonus piece about her experience that day. 

Not able to make it to the NHSJC in Washington, D.C. this year? Did you attend but want even more? Want to revisit fond memories? Listen to this episode of Yearbook Chat with Jim, recorded live from the Fall 2019 convention in Washington, D.C. Jim interviewed JEA President Sarah Nichols, Convention Chair Meghan Percival, and the editorial staff of Pine Crest High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Julia Satterthwaite, MJE, just handled her first big deadline as a yearbook adviser. She’s advised other publications for several years, but host Jim Jordan is following her journey for the first year advising at Monta Vista High School in Cupertino, California. This is the first check-in episode. He’ll continue to follow Julia and her staff’s progress throughout the year.   Stay tuned to learn how they’re navigating the yearbook process together!

Pat Monroe has been an adviser at Burges High School in El Paso, Texas, for 29 years. During that time, her staffs have won many awards for their yearbook. This month’s adviser of note shared her background, including her previous career as a broadcast journalist, and what working with yearbook staffs means to her. You can learn more and see pictures of Pat and her students at walsworthyearbooks.com.

Julia Satterthwaite recently made some big changes in her life. She and her family recently moved from Michigan to California.  In her new job at Monta Vista High School in Cupertino, California, she added "yearbook adviser" to her list of roles for the first time. Follow along all year as host Jim Jordan checks back in with this experienced journalism educator as she navigates her first year of yearbook. 

In this special WYPN crossover episode, host Jim Jordan teams up with Mike Taylor, of the Ask Mike podcast, to talk about leveling up your yearbook! They bring in yearbook experts do discuss the possibilities and ways yearbook staffs can make improvements. They also speak to advisers and staffs about the ways they want to Level Up their yearbooks for 2020!   Get some help achieving your goals. Enter the Walsworth Yearbooks Level Up contest at walsworthyearbooks.com/level-up and you could win a visit from Jim and Mike!

Becky Tate, CJE, is in a position many journalism advisers would envy. She and the four other high school publications teachers in her district all get along. It probably helps that one of those four is her husband and two are former students.  Becky has advised some incredible, award-winning yearbooks during her three decades at Shawnee Mission North High School in Mission, Kansas. In this episode, Becky and host Jim Jordan discuss her success, her history and the community she helped to build.