North High Alumni Association Compiles Old Yearbooks, Student Newspapers

By Talia Traskos-Hart

In sorting through old student yearbooks and editions of newspapers, volunteers for North High School’s Alumni Association have found remnants of student perspectives dating back to World War II.

These volunteers are working as a part of the Alumni Association’s yearbook and newspaper organization project, which has been ongoing for Chairman of the Board Isaac Solano’s nearly four-year term. Solano, a long-time DPS employee and North graduate, recalled reading stories that shed light on the issues facing a North community of another time.

“It’s really cool to go through the yearbooks and see our different city championships in the 1970s and our team competing in a different era,” Solano said. “And some of our most interesting school newspapers are those from wartimes, because stories of family going off to war or student perspectives really talk about what the students were experiencing at those times.”

The sorting project has included organizing the records chronologically and creating a backup collection in case of emergency in the archive rooms. Solano said much of the labor has come from volunteers, many of whom are retired community members with connections to North.

The Alumni Association hopes that the sorting can help future yearbook teams or community members have a resource for research and insight into the past.

“One day our big goal is to have a collection for the yearbook staff to browse through and look at as they’re planning their yearbook,” he said. “And with a bunch of the old things in our archives–old school newspapers, old local newspapers–we’re hoping to get them cataloged in our archive so the public could use them.”

The Alumni Association also works on other projects to connect alumni with the student body, including awarding scholarships to select graduating seniors each year.

Rebecca Caldwell, the head of marketing and communications for North High School and Skinner Middle School, emphasized the large role that the Alumni Association plays in connecting members of the North community. The endowment for the scholarship program tends to be about $1.5 million annually, Caldwell said.

“The Alumni Association is an incredibly important partner of ours at North and we receive a huge amount of support from them,” Caldwell said. “It is one of the most active high school alumni associations in the state, if not the country.”