Every fall, the yearbook advisors and editors literally take apart last spring’s Bernardian piece by piece. Once dismantled, the staff sends groups of yearbook pages into national scholastic competitions where professionals judge the book on layout, writing content and pictures.
Once returning to school this fall, the yearbook editors: Ally Chironna, Jake Rosen and Alexa Cerza, gathered hundreds of pages to send to Columbia Scholastic Press Association. In addition, the staff sent a bound yearbook to American Scholastic Press Association.
Early in the fall, Ms. Hunkele, Ms. O’Brien, Ally, Jake and Alexa all received letters from the Somerset Hills Board of Education, inviting them to a Board of Education meeting recognizing the yearbook staff about achieving a Gold Medal Critique award from Columbia Scholastic Press Association for the 2014-2015 yearbook titled, “Raising the Bar.”
At the meeting, Superintendent Dr. Wood, challenged the staff to keep improving and to strive for even bigger awards. After months of patiently waiting, in early January, the yearbook staff received news from American Scholastic Press Association. “Raising the Bar” received the highest award of First Place with Special Merit. Special Merit was offered to yearbooks that scored at least 950 points out of 1,000.
The Bernardian’s grand total was 955/1,000 achieving a near “perfect” score. The Bernardian was the only yearbook to win First Place with Special Merit from New Jersey, as most of the winners were from schools located in the South and the West coast.
Editor Jake Rosen said, “Winning this award means a lot to all of us because we put in so much hard work and don’t get a lot of recognition for it. With any type of publication, people usually focus on mistakes, but it is nice to get critiqued in a positive way.”
After meeting the Superintendent’s challenge, Advisor Ms. Hunkele said, “Each year we try to improve upon what we’ve done the previous year in concept, layout, design and journalistic content. The critiques from Columbia and American help us tremendously in these efforts and I’m incredibly proud of the staff. To be top 10 in the nation is an amazing accomplishment.”
In addition, The Bernardian was named “Most Outstanding High School Yearbook for 2015” from American Scholastic Press Association. Only 10 yearbooks out of approximately 300 submissions were given this award.
Bernards High School was the only yearbook in New Jersey to win in this category as well. Editor Alexa Cerza said, “Receiving this award will remain one of our proudest achievements in all four years of going to Bernards. I can confidently say, Jake, Ally and I are extremely proud to leave our names attached to such an important aspect of the school.”
The 2016 Bernardian is in the midst of production and the staff works daily to meet critical deadlines. Editor Ally Chironna said, “Ms. O’Brien and Ms. Hunkele are great advisors and we work great as a team. Ms. Hunkele is amazing when it comes to layout and Ms. O’Brien is great at making sure all of the articles and captions are correct.I told them they should show up to next year’s Morristown Beard’s yearbook conference wearing sashes and crowns!” The 2016 Bernardian is scheduled to be sent to print over spring break and released to students in June.
