The Delhi, Hayes’ yearbook team, is working to create the yearbook for the 2025-2026 school year with one of its largest staffs yet.
At Hayes, students are given the opportunity to join the Delhi staff as one of their elective courses. The class allows members to be active in the community, learn how to portray design and grow their photography skills.
“It’s a class where the skills connect to all kinds of career fields in the future,” adviser Aaron Sherman said.
This year, Delhi gained widespread popularity as many students from all grade levels decided to join and become members of the team.
“I joined yearbook because my friend suggested it to me,” first-year member Elaine Foli said. “I already knew some people who were going to be in it, and I thought it would also be fun to be a bit more creative.”
Though the team gained 19 new members this school year, the overall structure of the class has remained the same. For instance, Delhi’s editing staff, which is made up of four main editors: sports, body copy, student life, and photography, functions the same way.
The editors begin working together as early as the end of the last school year to decide on a theme for the upcoming book.
“The year before, everybody [on staff] presented on the final exam day a slideshow that showed all of their ideas for a possible theme,” sports editor Laurel Day said. “From there, we chose the editors for the next year who get to choose [the theme].”
The editors this year chose the idea of “capturing the moment.” The theme is filled with photography, digital cameras, old polaroids, and more.
Once the theme is chosen, members of Delhi are then assigned to spreads, or pages, that cover various events that happen throughout the year, such as sports, clubs and the music department.
With a great amount of new talent, Sherman has implemented more in-class lessons and teaching compared to previous years.
“[I want] to show them what they can do with our tools, to inspire them, to motivate them, and to teach them the basics so that they can then take them in the direction they want,” Sherman said. “Ultimately, this is their book.”
Having almost double the members on staff has allowed the team to reach high levels of progression. Since 27 people are in the room, the group can divide and still have multiple people on the same spread. The class size enhances the editing process as well.
“With the bigger staff, it means more eyes on the book,” Day said. “We are hoping to eliminate all of our mistakes.”
As Delhi continues the process of creating the book, they hope to earn yet another award from the Ohio Scholastic Media Association, or OSMA contest. In the two previous years, the group has leveled up as they received an honorable mention and then, as of last year, a second-class title. For this year, the team hopes to continue their streak of advancing and earn a first-class title.
All in all, the Delhi team is creating a yearbook filled with photographic factors through their larger staff in an attempt to reach their yearly goal.
“We have a huge responsibility to be the vault of memories for this generation so that when [students are] older, [they] can flip back and smile,” Sherman said.
