Plainsman production continues

CLOVIS — It probably seems peaceful, relaxing, if you close your eyes and picture the White Sands near Alamogordo.

It will be easier to picture for those who purchase Clovis High School’s 2020 yearbook, The Plainsman, because the White Sands and other scenery from the Land of Enchantment will be on the cover.

The yearbook staff of 20-plus has worked hard on what will be The Plainsman’s 100th anniversary installment.

Yes, the Clovis High yearbook has been around almost as long as New Mexico has been a state — eight years less — and has been a staple for graduating classes.

And the 2020 installment will be momentous for more reasons than just being the centennial edition. It comes out the year of the pandemic.

Social distancing, though, didn’t affect the current staff too much.

“I think we got a good enough head start on the yearbook this year that the challenges posed to us weren’t quite as bad as they really could’ve been,” Clovis High senior Ryan Perkins, The Plainsman’s editor, said Friday via Zoom conference call. “We were pretty well set up to get the yearbook submitted before all of the big challenges that came this year actually happened.”

So, they were able to enjoy the work.

“This year is probably the most fun I’ve ever had with the yearbook,” Silvia Novo, a Clovis High senior and The Plainsman’s senior editor, said on the Zoom call. “We’re all done with it, really; it’s all been submitted.”

Even with everything that’s happening in the world, getting to work on the 100th anniversary yearbook has been pretty cool stuff.

“Oh, it’s definitely cool,” Novo said. “The year 2020 has probably been the most impactful year of my life, with it being my senior year and this whole pandemic that’s going on. It’s definitely one for the books, and now we have a book to encapsulate all that experience.”

“It’s definitely an honor to be able to work on the 100th anniversary,” Perkins said, “and to leave my own mark on the school. This yearbook will definitely be a time capsule for all the years to come, and to be able to work on that is an honor.”

Perkins is concluding a lengthy run as The Plainsman’s editor, having taken the helm as a junior last year.

“That’s never happened; usually it’s a senior,” Clovis High teacher Augustine Martinez, who oversees the yearbook production, said Friday by telephone, prior to the Zoom call. “He was a junior (editor) because he was so extraordinary.”

Perkins, who also runs Clovis High’s newspaper, The Purple Press, has already secured a full scholarship to Vanderbilt. Novo earned a scholarship to Baylor that came with an abroad trip to Ireland.

But then came the virus, meaning Novo won’t be making that journey to the Emerald Isle. “Yeah, the whole Ireland thing’s kind of bumming me out,” she said.

Which adds a bummer even bigger than the one Novo had in Super Bowl LIV last February. On Friday's conference call, she was wearing a San Francisco 49ers cap.

“That’s where it all went downhill, when the 49ers lost,” Novo said. “We should’ve won that game.”

On a happier note for Novo, the yearbook she had a big hand in producing is soon to appear.

In the age of COVID-19, though, carrying that yearbook up the final steps could prove a challenge, according to Perkins.

“That’s where the true uncertainty comes in to play here,” he said. “We have probably about 120 yearbooks that we sold, and we’re still trying to figure out how we’re going to get those distributed out to all of our purchasers. We’re trying to figure out now how people can buy online while still being able to social distance, because as long as we’ve sold yearbooks it’s always been with cash or check in person. And now we can’t do that.”

Martinez said it looks as though buying online with a credit or debit card will indeed be an option, anything to get those yearbooks to those who want them.

That’ll be big, distributing the yearbook with that picture of the White Sands, along with a Yucca plant and hot air balloons that Perkins saw while traveling the state.

“Kind of encapsulating New Mexico,” he said.

Power to Perkins and his classmates. They are already looking at a delayed graduation ceremony, possibly this summer, maybe even December. They will wait for a walk across the stage rather than having a virtual graduation online.

Getting The Plainsman out will give them something good to remember about 2020.