Yearbook Again Earns Multiple Honors
By Alex Graham
Lemke Ledger Staff
The 2008 Razorback yearbook received top honors from two of the most prestigious competitions for yearbook excellence in the nation.
After being selected as a finalist for both the Associated Collegiate Press’ Pacemaker award and the Colombia Scholastic Press Association’s Crown Award, the Razorback received a Silver Crown in March for the second consecutive year and for the fifth time in school history.
The Silver Crown award is one of the highest recognitions given to a student publication by the CSPA, placing The Razorback among the top nine yearbooks in the country.
The CSPA also gives Gold Circle awards to recognize individual achievements of writers, editors and photographers.
The Razorback staff won a combined 34 Gold Circle awards, placing in 21 different categories.
“The Gold Circle awards are cool because they recognize individuals instead of the book as a whole,” co-editor Megan Garner said.
One of the Gold Circle awards was for a first place in overall cover design.
“It is nice to win so many [awards] on a national level,” co-editor Shannon Sanders said.
“It sets the bar high for next year,” Garner added.
In addition to the Crown Awards, The Razorback was also selected as a Pacemaker finalist for the second consecutive year. Since 1927, ACP’s Pacemaker competition is considered to be the equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize for collegiate student media.
This year, out of 54 total entries from across the country, 15 college yearbooks were chosen as Pacemaker finalists. A book is judged based on its general excellence, the quality of photography, complete coverage, innovative design and exemplary copy.
For the last couple of years, the staff has been trying to raise the quality of the book to be able to compete nationally with other schools by improving the quality of its copy and photographs.
“We stopped trying to make it look like a yearbook but more like a magazine,” Garner said.
After 111 years of publication, the last two Razorbacks were two out of only three UA yearbooks to become Pacemaker finalists, the last being the 1994 yearbook that was one of the winners.
When brainstorming story ideas for the book, The Razorback staff wanted to focus on new topics that would be interesting to students by documenting not only campus life and the college experience, but also the history of the UA.
The co-editors relied on staff contributions to get ideas for stories.
“The discussion is usually only between editors, but we needed to know what was going on in other majors besides journalism, too,” Garner said.
The Razorback is a completely student-driven publication with a staff of about 32 people – including two co-editors, copy editors and photo editors, Web and page designers, marketing staff and an abundance of photographers and writers.
“I don’t know how we got so lucky. We have come across some photographers who are amazingly talented and make our book look very good,” Garner said.
Being able to contribute to the publication provides great real-world experience, Garner said. All applicants are interviewed by the co-editors and hired based on individual talent.
“There is a lot of interest at the beginning of the year. Anyone can apply. We are not hurting for people, but we can never have too many photographers,” Garner said. “We are always looking for talent.”
The winners of the Pacemaker award will be announced at the National College Media Convention on Oct. 28-Nov. 1, 2009 in Austin, Texas.