Commemorate an Anniversary

Literary-art magazines can commemorate the anniversary year through special features, gatefolds, and magazines within the magazine.

Whatever your anniversary year, how might you make it an integral part of your literary-art magazine?

• Select a theme which reflects the spirit of beginnings or rejoicing.
• What were the headlines and discoveries? A Tennessee or Kansas school celebrating a 75th anniversary in 2000 might use the July 10-25, 1925, Scopes Trial as stimulus for investigation of science and society; personal beliefs and public education; the real trial, the newspaper reports including those of H. L. Mencken and the dramatizations.
• Select one of the major discoveries or issues of 50 years ago. Explore historic perspectives and contemporary impact.
• Research the fonts and design of 50 years ago. Use them in a special section to truly capture the spirit of another age.
• Interview graduates of 50 years ago.
• Did any past magazine staff or student body members become artists? Feature their work while in high school and now. What perspective can they give on the influence of the time period and maturing on their medium?
• Do you have sports fields and buildings named for individuals who taught at or graduated from your school? Research the origin and, if still living, interview the individuals for whom they were named.
• What ideas were present in the poetry, short stories and essays of 50 years ago? Select one of them. Sponsor a writing contest on that theme. How much does contemporary expression differ?

What has one staff done to incorporate celebration into the design of its magazine?

FAIRFAX, Virginia
1986 Fairfax High School

Matrix editors began planning a year ahead of the school's 50th anniversary. Through the first yearbook, they began their search for first graduates who would be willing to be interviewed during the summer. While they used information gathered from several individuals, they featured two graduates: a woman who was principal to a number of the 1986 graduates when they were in elementary school and a man who was a current, prominent banker. The man for whom the baseball field was featured; his three sons who graduated from FHS were included in this discovery profile. The theme of the entire magazine was the "fabric of life." The double gatefold was used to duplicate the Main Street of Fairfax, using the skills of mechanical drawing and architecture students and photographs from historical archives at the library.

Several of the interviews resulted in local color features for the following year's magazine.

Instead of looking back, look forward. Put key milestone articles and features from your publications on the school home page or use Highwired.net or another Internet provider. Include an alumni section for each class. Provide a means for former students to update with their e-mail addresses and professional and personal information.
Purchase several of the special century anniversary issues that will appear in the next months. They will be resources for data, features and layout ideas.

I do encourage advisers and editors within a school to talk to each other to coordinate coverage. You want the whole story told in the best photography and most comprehensive copy. That amazing close-up which was the dominant cover photograph of the newspaper can reappear in the yearbook and the literary magazine might have a variation on an anniversary story. Individual photographers, writers and staffs can develop the shared mission to provide their school accurate immediate communication and meaningful historic record.

— Carol Lange
Mid-Atlantic/Great Lakes regional director, has advised 13 yearbooks and 26 literary-art magazines. At both Fairfax (Va.) High School and Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Alexandria, Va., publications received NCTE Highest Award, SIPA All Southern, CSPA Silver and Gold crowns and NSPA All American and Pacemaker. After ten years of existence, Threshold was inducted into the NSPA Hall of Fame.

This selection is excerpted from an article Lange prepared for C:JET, a JEA publication.