Yearbook Staffs Win National Recognition : Journalism: Glendale’s Board of Education honors students at three high schools for receiving prestigious awards for the quality of their yearbooks.

David Cruikshank, a senior at Crescenta Valley High School, didn’t expect to beat the gods. But he did--and so did 24 other members of Crescenta’s yearbook staff, which recently edged out hundreds of competing yearbooks nationwide to capture two prestigious student journalism awards.

“We were competing against the gods and goddesses in the yearbook business,” said Cruikshank, 18. “We had no idea we’d win.”

He and other journalists from Crescenta Valley, Glendale and Hoover high schools were honored Tuesday by Glendale’s Board of Education for winning national awards.

Crescenta Valley’s 1988-89 yearbook staff won a Gold Crown award from the Columbia Scholastic Press Assn. and a National Pacemaker award from the National Scholastic Press Assn. Those awards are considered by many high school journalism teachers to be the most prestigious honors a yearbook can earn, said Richard Johns, director of the Quill and Scroll Society, an Iowa-based, international honor society for high school journalists, which is unconnected to the awards.

“Those are definitely marks of outstanding achievement,” Johns said.

Hoover High School won a Silver Crown, the second most prized award, for its 1988-89 yearbook. Glendale High School won a Silver Crown for its 1988-89 newspaper, “Explosion.” And Crescenta’s “Falcon” newspaper earned a Medalist rating from CSPA, just short of a Crown.

Glendale-area student newspapers and yearbooks have competed successfully in the past, but this is the first time that all three Glendale high schools won Crown awards the same year and that any publication in Glendale won both the Gold Crown and the Pacemaker.

The winning of the awards indicates that “the district is a center for quality high school journalism,” said Edmund Sullivan, CSPA director.

Representatives of the two student journalism associations said it is unknown how many newspapers and yearbooks are published by high schools around the country, but they agreed that their competitions include no more than a fourth of the total publications.

But, they claim, the publications that compete are generally the most motivated to improve and excel.

“The books that reach this level are journalistic,” Sullivan said. “This is not an after-school activity. This is a 12-month proposition. Students who compete are trying to succeed at it rather than slap together photos.”

Glendale winners were honored Tuesday with certificates and accolades from Board of Education members.

“I put in as much time as a coach, and it’s a hard thing for the kids to do,” said Linda Jensen, a biology teacher at Crescenta who is the yearbook staff adviser. “Really, all I want is for someone to say we did a good job and that they appreciate what we did. Of course, I wouldn’t mind some new photo equipment.”

“The Talon,” Crescenta’s yearbook, was chosen from among 1,370 yearbooks for the Gold Crown, awarded to 22 top contenders nationwide by the CSPA. It edged out 460 yearbooks for the Pacemaker, given to the top 10 competitors by the NSPA.

Only four other yearbooks in the country won both awards, according to the associations.

The award-winning product is a 300-page book packed with photos, graphics, captions and stories revolving around the theme, “Don’t Blink Or You’ll Miss It.” Its cover is a checkerboard of black, raspberry and teal. The first few pages match background colors to the primary colors in the photos. A 16-page “mini-magazine” insert features short news stories and graphically illustrated surveys on cheating, smoking, AIDS and politics.

The book was produced entirely “by hand”--with no computer help--and printed by a Missouri-based company, Jensen said. The staff this year began setting its type on computers and soon will be electronically producing graphics and designing pages.

That will allow students to see what a story, caption, graphic or photo looks like on a page before the proofs are sent to the printing company, said Hope Elliot, a writer for the award-winning book who now is editor.

“Last year the proofs would come back from the printer and almost everything would be wrong,” said Elliot, a junior. “Now we can see almost exactly how it’s going to appear.”

Proms and football games may always capture the most attention at high schools, which frustrates and sometimes discourages her staff, Jensen said. None of Glendale’s yearbook or newspaper staffs receive direct funding from the district, and the yearbook staffs must finance their products through advertising, sales and fund-raisers.

Jensen’s staff, for instance, paid off a debt last year by sitting as paid audience members during game show tapings, she said.

But, she added, producing yearbooks and newspapers has become a big business in its own right.

Crescenta’s and Hoover’s yearbook staffs must raise nearly $50,000 each annually to cover their costs. Students at Crescenta have begun typesetting, design and graphics on computers; Hoover’s staff may begin such work if it receives PTA funds to upgrade its word-processing programs.

Glendale’s newspaper staff does everything but print its newspaper on two Macintosh computers and a laser printer it acquired last year, said the adviser, Judy Lind.

The yearbook staffs once put out “a book of pictures with gag slogans.” Now they’re producing a polished, colorful, well-designed book that includes polls and illustrations, coverage of sensitive student issues and a theme, said Paul Diffley, an art teacher and adviser to Hoover’s yearbook staff.

“The books have gotten much more exciting to look at,” Diffley said. “There are much more coherent graphics. The stories are much better written. We make sure there are captions on each picture. Each year books get better and the competition gets harder.”

The general criteria by which yearbooks are judged--including theme, design, content, coverage and use of color--have not changed, but the standards for competition have, said Annie Witta, a NSPA administrator.

“You’d be amazed at what students can do now,” Witta said. “The standards are getting much tougher.”

Crescenta’s recent success has not increased the number of applicants for the yearbook staff, and it is not expected to attract district funding for new computer or photo equipment, Jensen said. But, she added, it may do wonders as motivation.

“It’s worth a lot just to be recognized for our work,” Elliot said. “It gave us a lot to live up to.”