A high school yearbook is much more than a collection of dated hairstyles and former crushes.
They're "a great source of historical material," says Longview historian Jerry Kelly, who has compiled computer CDs of senior photos from the yearbooks of Kelso, R.A. Long and Castle Rock high schools from each school's first year through 2010.
For example, Longview high school classes "started at St. Helens Inn," he said. "They also held classes at the Y, which was then the Longview Community House. The first graduating class at R.A. Long was in 1929, but the sophomores and juniors were still at Kessler. That's what you find out by going through here."
His compilations include every senior photo plus the covers, staffs, some photos of school buildings and sports, and occasional advertisements.
"It's just a way to bring back those memories," said Kelly, who attended school in Castle Rock and Longview. He is a life member of the Cowlitz County Historical Museum.
With assistance from Valerie Longbons of the Friends of the Kelso Library — who typed all 44,482 names — Kelly created an Excel file that can be searched by graduating year, surname or first name. Kelly typed in a surname to how siblings and generations could be tracked through the same school.
"You can get whole groups of families," he said.
The CDs sell for $10 each, with proceeds going to programs and charitable activities at the outlets offering them for sale (see box). Kelly does not keep any of the money for himself.
Because the CDs are so labor-intensive to download, label and package, only 300 CDs from each school have been made. The CDs can be viewed on computer, but because of the Excel file they won't work on a DVD player, he said.
This is Kelly's second year doing a the yearbook project. Last year he produced "110 years of Castle Rock Graduates," which includes 6,576 seniors. It sold 400 copies, requiring a second release.
The Kelso and RAL compilations are much bigger - 20,420 and 17,486 seniors respectively. From 1933 to 1938, during the Great Depression, RAL didn't produce a yearbook. So Kelly used the commencement pages in the school archives. He gathered the information from the Longview and Kelso libraries and both high schools.
Each CD took 500 to 600 of hours of volunteer labor to scan and edit.
"I burnt out two scanners and a computer," he said.
He wanted to do Mark Morris High School, but that school's yearbook pages are an inch an a half larger than his scanner screen, he said. A retired teacher has been considering taking on a Mark Morris CD, he said.
Read more: http://tdn.com/news/local/collection-of-digital-yearbooks-goes-back-to-area-s-early/article_24ca1876-23a4-11e1-8578-001871e3ce6c.html#ixzz1gI0vMNwv
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