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Taking on the task of organizing a school yearbook would be daunting for anyone, but for then-grade 11 student Shantelle Bron, she never hesitated when asked by Grand Forks Secondary School (GFSS) Principal Scott Stewart.
“At the start of grade 10, Mr. Stewart called me into his office and asked me if it was something I would be interested in taking on,” she said. “I said I’d be up for it if no one in the grad class was up for here. So I became editor.”
For Bron, who is very artistic and loves writing, becoming editor of the yearbook seemed a natural transition.
“It was something I’d always wanted to do,” said Bron, who had never done anything like yearbook.
Not satisfied with previous yearbooks, Bron spent a lot of time researching companies.
“I looked through a list of yearbook companies we had worked with before and got their prices,” she said. “Times are tough now. People don’t want to spend $50 for a yearbook. I got a real good price from Friesens. They seemed like a really good company to work with. They turned out great.”
With no journalism class at GFSS last year, Bron formed a yearbook committee which would meet regularly during lunch hours.
“I started with a huge group but by the end there was only a couple of us left,” she said.
Bron estimates she spent over 500 hours working on the project, all while taking a full course load.
“I thought it would be a lot easier,” she admitted. “It was really hard to get everyone together to just get it done. I thought I’d be able to meet all the deadlines easily but I ended up doing it until 2 a.m. with the music cranked.”
Despite the long hours and added stress, Bron is grateful for the experience.
“I feel like I’m going to take everything I did in yearbook as a lesson,” she said. “I learned so much. Not just about myself but about working with other people; having patience with myself; and working around problems.”
Bron said that the feedback she’s received on the yearbook has been mainly positive.
“I just did my best to capture the year properly,” she said. “You try to get that time capsule feeling, especially for the grads. You want them to have something to look back on.”
Friesens were so impressed with Bron’s work that she was the focus of an article in the company’s newsletter.
“Grand Forks Secondary should be proud of what Shantelle has accomplished,” wrote Cameron Fay, Western Canadian sales manager for Friesens, in the newsletter. “We here at Friesens give her a big round of applause for her extraordinary effort.”
Not one to rest on her laurels, Bron has been busy working this summer in Drumheller, Alta as a counselor at the science camp.
She is on par to graduate from GFSS in January and is looking at Red Deer College in the future because of it’s university level arts program.