Alex Carr's The Jaguars' Spot column for Wed., Jun. 23, 2010

The yearbook blues: When being early is too late!

          Like most high schools, the yearbook has been a long-standing tradition at VCHS. It’s basically a big pile of glossy paper filled with pictures of people and events that happened over the last nine months with a bunch of empty space in the back where your friends write down messages and notes as you part for summer, or many summers. Just about every student wants one every year and every year just about every student gets one. Until this year.

          In the past, students have been able to preorder their book at any point right up until the end of the year, then the high school would order that many plus a few hundred extra for kids who wait until the very last moment to buy one on the spot. But, according to Principal McCowan, last year the school ended up with about a hundred books left over, which was a huge waste in both materials and expense.

          To minimize the number of leftovers, VCHS announced this year that they would only be getting only the preordered books with a minimal number of extras. Unfortunately, that message didn’t really sink in for a whole lot of students so, when they went to buy a yearbook at the very last moment, there wasn’t one available.

          To make things worse, the school is missing one or two boxes of books (which, according to McCowan, was the result of an error by the printing company, Jostens), causing even some kids who had paid for yearbooks at the beginning of the school year (about 20) to not be able to get one. Ironically, when those kids went to pickup their preordered book, they were beat our by students who had just bought theirs that day.

          Principal McCowan told me he has personally called the parents of those 20 students and assured them he is doing all he can to locate those missing boxes. “It’s not fair,” says McCowan, “that a student who preordered his or her book didn’t get one when other students who bought theirs at the last minute did.”

          My suggestion: If they don’t find those boxes of books and the company can’t print more, maybe we can get together and photocopy a workable yearbook for these kids -- assuming there are no legal issues with making copies. I personally volunteer to borrow books from friends and create the book.

Tell me about it!:

          If you’re at a loss what to do with all your newfound free time now that summer is here, consider doing what Ben Everett suggested: go to a rugby practice from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Cole Grade Park on various weekdays depending on people's schedules. I went to a few and they were a lot of fun. Also, there are tons of different sporting activities going on at the high school like pick-up games, practices, and weight room. Finally, the high school offers quite a few summer programs in things like band. Search Facebook for pages detailing local events happening over summer.

          Have a good summer guys! See you all next year!

          Read all of San Diego Press Club award-winner Alex Carr's columns at www.carrfamily.com.