Hauberk is the Shawnee Mission East yearbook. Students write, take photos and design in order to capture an entire school year in about 500 pages. The editors this year are Audrey Dickens and Becca Pfeifauf.
“We turn in about 100 pages or so [to our publisher] at a time, probably five times a year,” Dickens said. “It’s kind of difficult because that seems like it’s not a lot, but you have to manage your time as you go to make sure you’re on track.”
The staff is responsible for including every school picture, club, sport, senior ad and more in a single book. They also write stories about school events or features on students. All of their photos are taken by staff photographers and their graphics are created by student designers.
In past years, the Hauberk had pictures that came to life with an app called Aurasma. When someone held their phone over a photo, it turned into a video or interview. This year’s book will have new features too, but students will have to wait until the end of the year to see them.
The yearbooks are given out on Distribution Day, which is always close to the end of the school year. On this day, yearbooks are given to almost every student at Shawnee Mission East. This is one of the biggest days of the year for the Hauberk staff because the school finally gets to see the book they have worked on all year.
The Hauberk staff works two class periods a day to create an interactive, professional yearbook that has been nationally recognized with multiple Pacemaker and Gold Crown Awards.
“We’ve consistently been award winning,” Dickens said. “We’re always nationally recognized and we’ve been told that our book is a coffee table book just in the sense that it’s not like normal yearbooks, it’s real graphic design.”