The Canyon staff to release 12th yearbook: "I am Here. Where Are You?"

The Canyon yearbook staff will distribute the twelfth yearbook in Sierra Canyon Upper School history on May 16^th to both seniors and all underclassmen. The small, tight-knit staff created a 304-page book recapping and capturing the memories of the 2016-2017 school year starting last June, including an August two-day summer camp, and working from Late August until March.

“I love this book and how much work we all put into it; I encourage everyone to read the text in this book!" Editor-in-Chief Lauren Onelum ('18) says. "Read the dividers, the features, the opening and closing, and everything else in between. It’s about you, it’s about me, it’s about those you know everything about, but equally as important it’s about the one’s you don’t know anything about,"

After a morning assembly on May 9^th in which the staff shared the process of creating the theme I am Here. Where are You?, the book will be distributed to the entire Upper School on May 16^th, with hopes that seniors will have time to sign underclassmen’s books and vice versa. With some of the ad revenue, the staff will provide custom designed pens, balloons, and even donuts to give to the student body on that day to celebrate the book’s distribution.

The book’s theme this year was decided at the end of last year with only a few members of the current staff. After each student in last year’s class made a mock-book pitching new theme ideas as a class assignment, the class then voted on and selected the theme that the staff thought could best represent our school, and the people in our school in the best way possible. The theme editors selected I am Here, Where are You? 

“We wanted it to be a medium with which we could expose our school to the rest of our school," Lauren Onelum explains. The goal of the theme, according to the yearbook staffers, is to remind students that even if they think they are all sharing the same collective experience as high school and middle school students, each student also has their own different stories.

“I am Here, Where are You? is a cool way to think about how our school is represented in Los Angeles because there are so many prominent schools and we are such a young school," staffer Rayan Ansari ('21) says. "As a community we all know we are here, but then maybe others don’t know where we are.”

The editors hope this book will urge readers to think about the different stories and people that make up Sierra Canyon. They believe it reminds all that there is a second story, and that people should look beyond at the surface - beyond "that pretty girl walking through the hall or that confident boy that has everything you could imagine." The Canyon staff says that what's on the surface is just the first story — and they encourage you to find the second story in this yearbook.