You may find, for example, interesting pairs of classmates. Actor
Robert Redford and baseball great Don Drysdale were class-
mates at Van Nuys High School in 1954. Golfer Arnold Palmer
and “Mr.” Fred Rogers of television fame were a year apart at
Latrobe, Pennsylvania High School. Actors Rock Hudson and
Charlton Heston were two years apart at New Trier High School in
Winnetka, Illinois.
“Our society is obsessed with celebrities,” said Seth Poppel, the
owner of more than 500 celebrity high school yearbooks. Poppel
was largely responsible for the Memories Magazine Yearbook, a
fast-selling collection of celebrities’ high school graduation photos
that was published in the 1990s.
Poppel once paid $200 for a copy of a yearbook from Commerce
High School in Commerce, Oklahoma. The yearbook contained
pictures of its most famous graduate, Mickey Mantle. Poppel’s
prize find was Elvis Presley’s yearbook from Humes High in
Memphis, Tennessee. His most expensive purchase was a $4,000
copy of Lou Gehrig’s yearbook. But the Holy Grail of yearbook col-
lecting has eluded Poppel. “Babe Ruth went to high school at St.
Mary’s Orphanage in Baltimore,” Poppel said. “He left in 1914, and
I’ve been trying to ascertain if any yearbook was published with
the graduating class.” Be on the lookout—if you find the Babe’s
yearbook, your fortune may be made. Meanwhile, look through old
yearbooks from your school to find photos of famous graduates.(^434) MIXED MEDIA
MEDIA WATCH, continued
- Select five magazine layouts that you admire. Make notes about
any changes you would need to make to adapt the layouts for a
school publication. - Clip five ads that give you ideas for yearbook themes. Highlight the
words or phrases you like best. Jot down suggestions for carrying
the theme throughout the book. - Look through yearbooks from other schools. Make a list of ideas
for feature stories that you might adapt for your book. - From other yearbooks, copy or sketch layout ideas for theme
pages and division pages, as well as for each section of your book.
Note what you especially like about each layout idea and how you
might change it to make it more appropriate for your book —maybe
a change of typeface or a different headline treatment.
To prepare for the following exercises, gather a variety of magazines to give
you some raw material. Check with your journalism teacher to see if he or
she has examples of yearbooks from other schools that you could borrow.Portfolio