At many schools around the diocese, yearbooks highlight and commemorate the most important events of the previous year. At the end of the school year, it’s never long before students pass them around and fill them with signatures from friends.

Before all that can happen, though, there is a lot that must be done. Students involved in the yearbook club at St. Bernadette School in Springfield spend much of their time snapping photos at school events and writing articles. One day a week, they give up their lunch and recess to lay out pages with special design software.

Katy Carlson is the volunteer who has been in charge of the school’s yearbook staff since January 2005. Every year, she selects students for the club based on their writing and photography skills and teacher recommendations. She teaches them about photography, interviewing and writing articles and trains them to lay out pages on the computer. Then, for the most part, she puts them in charge.

“What really impresses me is that the kids probably do 90 percent of the yearbook by themselves,” Carlson said. “I always ask them, ‘Whose yearbook is this? It’s not my yearbook. These are not my school memories, this is yours.’ My job is to give them the responsibility and the opportunity to make it their yearbook, to capture the entire school’s history and memories of that school year.”

This year, the staff consists of 10 students — five eighth-graders and five seventh-graders — who take turns meeting in teams of three or four once a week during lunch and recess. At the end of the school year, their finished product will be a yearbook with 72 color pages, more than 700 photos and articles about the year’s most important events.

Over the years, the books have become a source of pride for the school. The yearbook for the 2008 school year was named “Best Designed Yearbook” by the Strawbridge publishing company. School Principal Trish Beeks said she is proud of the yearbook team and called the book “a truly first-class publication.”

“The students eagerly share their gifts and talents giving of their free time to produce a yearbook that will preserve many wonderful memories of our children and school families for years to come,” Beeks said.

By working on the yearbook, Carlson said, students try their hand at journalism, learn responsibility and self-confidence.

“This is really an area students can shine in other than math and science,” Carlson said. “It raises their confidence level when they see themselves doing something bigger. These kids grow immensely.”

Eighth-grader Caitlin Kwalwasser joined the staff more than a year ago because of her interest in writing and photography. She enjoys taking photos at school functions.

“I took photos at the Nativity pageant and got to crawl around the floor and get great shots of the third-graders in the Nativity,” she said.

Seventh-grader Clare Heaney joined the staff at the beginning of the school year.

“I’ve always liked writing and taking pictures, and I had seen other people doing yearbook and thought it would be a really great way to do all of those things, but within the school,” she said.

So far, she’s written articles about Colonial Day and first Communion.

“I think it’s really great because seventh- and eighth-graders are the oldest kids in our school,” Heaney said. “It’s cool we get to take responsibility for (the yearbook), and I love that it’s student-run. It’s a lot of responsibility, but it’s also really fun and I really like it.”

“We’re practically the school historians,” Kwalwasser said. “Years and years from now, (students) will be able to look at the pictures and know what is happening.”