The National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA) awards American high school yearbooks every year. Summit’s 2023 “So Much More” yearbook received an All-American from the NSPA for the first time in four years. The last time The Pinnacle Yearbook received an All-American was in 2019, the 10th book in 11 years that received the All-American, and put the Pinnacle into the NSPA Hall of Fame. The awards are presented based on five marks of distinction: essentials, coverage, design, photography, and editing and writing. In 2023, Summit received four of those five marks, all but editing + writing.
The 2024 Co-Editor-in-Chief and 2023 Layout Editor, Paige Lehman, played a crucial role in getting Summit to achieve the design mark of distinction. In spring, the Pinnacle’s yearbook representatives from Varsity Yearbooks, Dan Mueller and Danielle Corgan, brought in the “Varsity Portfolio” book, which displays nationally recognized yearbooks. Summit was featured several times in the book.
“My favorite part of getting the All-American is when our yearbook representatives came into our class to help us with our current book, but then showed us how to make it in a catalog book that most school yearbooks get. It was cool to see some of our spreads be sent to schools nationwide,” Lehman said.
Co-Editor-in-Chief of the 2024 yearbook and Photo Editor of the 2023 yearbook Maria Anderson helped the Pinnacle reach the photography mark of distinction.
“One of my favorite parts of the yearbook was [that] we had really strong photographers so it added a lot to the book,” Anderson said.
The mark that Summit didn’t receive was for editing + writing, due to stories not being featured in that year’s book.
“We didn’t get the last one because it was for stories and the yearbook we did had zero stories in it,” Lehman said.
Anderson felt that the no-stories move helped shape the yearbook.
“We also didn’t do stories last year and we had more mods which I liked because it was different but I’m glad we are back to our normal style this year.”
As Summit hadn’t won an award in the past few years, this award was surprising to many.
“I was very shocked [about winning], and I didn’t realize that our book was going to be that big of a deal. I was really excited because it was cool to see all our hard work be recognized.” Lehman said.
Similarly, Anderson wasn’t expecting it either.
“I don’t think a lot of the girls knew how big of a deal it was, but I knew from when [previous Journalism Adviser Clay] Zigler was still there [because] he was always talking about it. I hope we can get one again this year. We [put a lot] of work into this one and I think we can do it,” Anderson said.
