Katie Yant is ending the 2024-2025 school year as a senior in Publications. Publications is a class run by Mrs. Mason; in this class students are educated on creativity, neatness, editing and photography skills. The students design and create the yearbook which goes out to the students of the school.
Yant first started taking this course as a freshmen, but had to drop the course during her sophomore year due to academic scheduling. However, during her junior year at the Ridge she decided to pick up this elective once more and found it more engaging, as well as fun.
“I took yearbook for three years. I didn’t take it my sophomore year because of a schedule conflict, but I came back to the class because of how much love I had for it,” commented Yant.
Yearbook has made this senior a better person because it has influenced her social abilities, as well as teaching her about different design materials. The class also has been able to teach her to open up to a different perspective. Publications students have to be very creative while coming up ideas for the yearbook and providing quality content.
Yant mentioned, “After high school, I can use the social skills yearbook has taught me to be able to talk to a wide range of people. It has educated me in graphic design and made me more perceptive to other people’s lives and their stories.”
There are limited students in the publications program and the Ridge is always encouraging other people to join in. The class is fun, students gain photography and design skills, as well as networking with a group of people who are social and down for anything.
“I would tell a newcomer to stick with yearbook, because watching the books you make over the years and then as a senior, come alive, is one of the greatest things I have been able to experience. My favorite memory from publications has been almost all of them. I have met some of my best friends in yearbook class and everyday just sitting and talking with them is amazing,” comments Yant.
The publications teacher, Ms. Mason, is a very welcoming person who wants her students to succeed and have a good time doing it. She has watched Yant grow into the person she is today and loves to see her continuous students move up during their high school years.
“Katie’s confidence and outspokenness has definitely improved over the years. She doesn’t hesitate to vocalize what needs getting done and what she thinks. I encourage students to take publications for multiple reasons. The most important is this is the only class dedicated to leaving a legacy. As student leave and move on, the only permanent record of those years on campus is the yearbook. For fun, yearbook always likes a good party, but more often I think the class just likes to joke and tease one another. Almost everybody is their true authentic self during this class, so we accept them just the way they are and poke fun at them – including myself. We truly do become a family – dysfunctional and all,” states Mrs. Mason.
