At the beginning of the school year, staff and students from the Class of 2020 worried that their coveted senior yearbook would not be in their hands by the last month of the school year. That was, until Victoria Bruzik ‘20 talked to Lin Illingworth and sparked a revolution that ensured the tradition of a yearbook would not end. 

The year long process deals with all kinds of journalism, photography and web design that can be very hard to piece together. The yearbook has importance to the students at Hollis Brookline and making sure the book lives up to its worth is challenging to accomplish. With such a hefty task before them, Illingworth elegantly rose to the position of Head Yearbook Planner and Bruzik took on the taxing Head Editor role.

Now that the yearbook team is up and running again, the two praise each other for their efforts to preserve the club. “It’s the students’ book. And, this year, I want to praise Victoria Bruzik, she pretty much saved the yearbook in 2018. Her consistency, leadership, reliability, and skill set reminds me of the leaders we had in the past and I haven’t seen those kinds of leaders in a long time,” said Illingworth.

“Ms. I is the only reason yearbook is still running. At the beginning of the school year, there was talk that the yearbook would not continue because of the lack of interest and leadership. Ms. I saw that the class of 2020 needed a book,” said Bruzik. 

As head of the yearbook team, there is a lot of pressure to create a satisfactory final product. “You’re presenting this to the community. Every student who’s in the book is a stakeholder, every parent who has a child in the book is a stakeholder and that is pretty overwhelming to most people,” said Illingworth.

Bruzik and Illingworth’s efforts towards the yearbook has been one of their greatest contributions to the school this year, and it certainly has not gone unnoticed. Daniel Bumbarger, a new school counselor and this year’s yearbook advisor, has definitely seen them flourish. “[Mrs. Illingsworth] cares so much about it,” said Bumbarger, “She loves yearbook more than anybody I’ve ever met. When she has free time or an opportunity to interact with students during the day to talk about yearbook she takes advantage of it. She builds great relationships with the students and it’s easy to see that the students appreciate her creativity, and she has a great vision.”

Illingworth has definitely shined a new light onto a once dulling club. “Ms. I is a teacher who sees value in what her students think. This can be seen specifically in the yearbook. Ms. I loves to encourage us, to bring forward our ideas and find new ways to approach them. She is very open to hearing creative ideas and incorporating a combination of everyone’s ideas to formulate great success.”said Bruzik.

It has been brought to light in recent weeks that Mrs. Illingworth has decided to step down as the Head Yearbook Planner and hand it over to Kristy Green, who will continue to work with Bruzik and take on the difficult task of encapsulating a whole year into one book. Hopefully the new crew will be able to continue to bring the same energy and enthusiasm to yearbook as Illingworth.