The Bear River 2018-19 Yearbook class has put the finishing touches on this year’s edition of The Rapids before their deadline.

Advisor Christina Levinson felt positive about the staff’s abilities this year.

“The yearbook staff this year … did really well,” said Mrs. Levinson. “We were lead by Caitlin McLaughlin, who is our executive editor, and then we have a trio of really strong juniors backing her up, and they worked really well.”

This year’s staff felt, overall, confident in this year’s edition.

“I really wanted to make something that all of the seniors could look back on and really appreciate at the end of the year,” Executive Editor Caitlin McLaughlin said. “And then we all go on and take our different paths, and we can look back and remember all of our old friends and everything. So I wanted it to be really memorable for everyone.”

Freshman Sierra Dixon had similar feelings to McLaughlin.

“I hope people really like it because we put a lot of hard work into it to make it something that students can enjoy,” said Dixon. “It’s really important because it’s something that other people look back on.”   

One Step Beyond, the theme of this year’s edition, was a difficult task, according to McLaughlin.

“You wouldn’t think it would be that hard, but coming up with a yearbook theme was probably the hardest thing I ever did,” said McLaughlin. “It was really difficult to come up with it because you have all this pressure to make this exciting theme that everyone is going to like, and you always have to factor that no one is going to love it. You’re always going to have people hate it, so when you come up with a theme, you always put that in perspective. You can’t please everyone, so that was pretty hard.”

Dixon was very excited about this year’s theme.

“I think [the theme] is really cool and creative,” said Dixon. “I think people are going to really like it.”

Mrs. Levinson had her own interpretation of the theme.

“I wasn’t really sure how we were going to interpret One Step Beyond,” said Mrs. Levinson. “I don’t think there’s one person who helped translate that perfectly, but everyone really worked as a team and we were actually able to translate our theme really beautifully.”

Many parts of the yearbook had plenty of hurdles to it.

“With the yearbook committee, everybody is doing something different,” said Dixon. “So the hardest part was knowing what everyone else was doing and knowing what you were supposed to be doing.”

Junior Editor Colby Greig experienced problems with the editing of the book, which, as of last year, switched from Jostens to TreeRing.

“With any book you’re designing, you’re going to have problems,” said Greig. “Probably the biggest problem, for me, TreeRing not cooperating. Sometimes there would be a glitch or something, and you have to go through and fix it, and sometimes [the staff] wouldn’t know how to fix it, so it’s kind of hard to keep on top of everything that happens.”

With the yearbook deadline fast approaching, Mrs. Levinson encouraged students to purchase in advance.

“The yearbook deadline is April 9th, and that there will be no extra copies in the student store,” said Mrs. Levinson. “In fact, you cannot buy the yearbook in the Student Store. You have to buy it online at TreeRing.com. It costs $60.17, [and] it’s 168 pages of Bruin awesomeness. It’s a hardback, and it’s a great book. Everyone should totally buy it. We have the best yearbook in the district.”