The 2024 senior students have already graduated. Some are in college, studying and preparing for their future careers. But their efforts at the high school are still being recognized, because the 2024 yearbook classes work in the Kabekonian has won a Pictavo top 100 award.

The Pictavo award recognizes yearbooks based on a commitment to the highest standards, which are established by state and national press associations. Pictavo is the largest printing company in the yearbook industry. Pictavo itself is a software system that helps to produce yearbooks. Their parent company, Taylor Corporation, prints more than 25 million books a year.

The high school’s yearbook, the Kabekonian, was named on the honor roll list, ranking in the top 100 out of 6000 yearbooks submitted to Pictavo. When the Editor-in-Chief of the yearbook and senior, Aph Curtis, heard the news, she said she was very excited, and is really proud of her and her colleague’s work.

“I was excited to say the least. It’s something I’m really proud of, and getting to see other people that like it as well, it’s a really genuine feeling. A lot of students contribute to [the yearbook], a lot of really hard working students,” Curtis said.

When the yearbook class teacher and advisor Donald Pults received the news of the Kabekonian winning top 100, he said he was a bit emotional, and evidently very pleased.

The yearbook class is a senior-only class. This class works vigorously to get the yearbook done and turned in by their deadline to ensure students are able to get their yearbook before the school year ends.

Senior Shea Denning said each quarter students are assigned a spread, they are then put into groups, and from there students can choose what topic or story they want to do. The yearbook class works collaboratively to put these stories together. Denning said the yearbook class just got done working on their first spread, mainly summer sports and activities.

The 2024 Kabekonian yearbook had some new and different components within it. For example, Curtis mentioned how the 2024 yearbook class decided to make the cover stand out more, making it bolder, and “busier, in a good way.” Another newer component they added was a section called 24 Things We Love About Stillwater. Within this section, they wrote about both the community and the school, such as local shops and restaurants, and things within the school like the football games and certain elective classes. This section ended up being one of Pults’ favorite sections, due to it being so unique.

This award is a big accomplishment for the high school’s yearbook class. Being recognized nationwide for the yearbook classes senior students efforts is remarkable.

“I think it’s fun to be able to create something that everyone’s going to be able to look at and something that people are going to look back on, and you get to say hey, I worked on that, I contributed,” Curtis said.