The yearbook, The Lonestar, was one out of 68 finalists nominated for the Crown Award for their 2015 yearbook by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association on Nov. 10.

Almost 2,000 yearbooks were sent into the Columbia Scholastic Press Association to be graded and reviewed for an award.

“They get thousands of yearbooks from all over the United States and some international schools, so they grade it on a rubric and look at your writing, photography, graphic design, coverage and how many students you’re fitting into your book,” journalism and yearbook adviser Jamie Ray said. “So they quite literally go page by page, and you get points for everything you do well on. From there, they pull the top books and choose the finalists and awards based on that.”

The Lonestar was the only Leander ISD school and one of three Central Texas schools to win a Crown. The yearbook staff also enters the book into contests with the National Scholastic Press Association and at the state level with the Interscholastic League Press Conference with UIL.

“We’ve been nominated for a few Pacemakers by NSPA, and then last year we actually won a Pacemaker for the 2015 book, so that was a big first for us,” Ray said. “We also won the most individual Gold Circle Awards, and we also typically place really well at UIL. The past few years have been really exciting because we’ve done really well, so it’s been fun.”

The staff members can also be awarded individual awards for the pages that they created by themselves called Gold Circle Awards.

“We have to cut the pages that we want to send in out of the book and tape them together and send them in,” senior and editor Allison McCain said. “We haven’t heard who got the Gold Circles from last year yet, but we’ll probably hear in December. Our staff members usually win Gold Circles every year. If a yearbook overall isn’t the best, but there’s still that one really good page, then you’ll probably win a Gold Circle.”

However, with great success comes a heavy workload and busy schedules. The yearbook staff has its plate full with a nonstop 10-month long process.

“We start planning our concept in May, so after we hand out the yearbooks, our next step is to plan the theme and the concept for the next year,” Ray said. “So we plan from May, then we go to summer camp, and then into the school year we work through the beginning of April. It’s a very long and stressful 10 month process that we go through every year. It’s a long journey, from coming up with the concept to seeing it actually in print.”

Although the process is long, the plan for the final outcome of the book is ever-changing and uncertain.

“Coming up with a theme and sticking to it is the most difficult thing,” McCain said. “You have an abstract idea of what you want to create, but there’s nothing concrete. You go through the whole process and think you know what you want it to look like but you’re never sure. You just have the basic design elements planned. But when you have that, it’s a lot easier to build off of that and have a better idea of what you want to create.”

Inspired by the satisfaction that comes with winning any individual Gold Circle Award, national level award or state level award, The Lonestar’s staff raises the bar and makes each yearbook better than the last.

“I think it’s really great because we’re starting to see our journalism program leave this legacy of excellence, so this is our third Crown in a row and our fourth Crown total,” Ray said. “Just to receive national recognition from people who know good work when they see it, and what it’s like to put a yearbook together means a lot. Students get their yearbook in May, and they’re like, ‘yeah, this is cool’ but they don’t realize the design, the writing and the photography that’s put into it. So it’s nice to have people in the industry and other yearbook programs look at your book and appreciate it. I think it’s great for our program because it puts us on the map in the yearbook world.”