The smell of an old book encompassed my nostrils as dust particles flew in the air turning the pages. The book contains black and white portraits and old photos of buildings that used to exist on the University of Idaho campus.
Gem of the Mountains was once the university yearbook, which began in 1903. It contains the faces of alumni, old buildings, clubs and, most of all, history. Of course, all good things come to an end and the yearbook stopped running in 2004. Student Media decided to create Blot Magazine to replace this treasured historical gem.
Lindsay Trombly | Argonaut
My inspiration for being a journalism major as well as joining Student Media, all started in junior high school — at Les Bois Jr. High with Mrs. McFadden. She forced me to join the yearbook staff and after I did, I was hooked.
Yearbook became my home in school for four consecutive years. After beginning with the yearbook, I knew journalism was meant for me.
I love working for The Argonaut and Blot Magazine — don’t get me wrong. I would love to get back to my roots of being involved with a yearbook. If Gem of the Mountains still existed today, I know I’d be on staff.
Whenever I pick up Gem of the Mountains in our conference room to browse through after meetings or during production, a part of my heart warms inside. I feel connected to it — even though I didn’t create the book myself.
Yearbook began my love of journalism. I know there are students attending UI next year that are active on their high school yearbook staffs. They should still have that possibility to be on a yearbook staff during their college career.
A yearbook shouldn’t be something that disappears after high school.
I’m not suggesting that our current publications stop printing. However, the Gem of the Mountains needs to co-exist with these two publications. The publication has to return and continue to produce history in a yearbook like it did for 101 years.
Being on a yearbook staff is such a different experience from being on a newspaper staff or magazine staff. It’s very rewarding and forces students to get out into the community to get to know things about their school they didn’t know before.
The Argonaut runs stories about clubs, buildings and more, except these copies get lost and forgotten. A yearbook is a hardbound book that people store on their shelves and look back on 20 years from now.
I hoard past issues of The Argonaut in my dorm room but I doubt students around campus do the same. They need a yearbook to keep all of their memories in one place.
I enjoy looking through my high school yearbooks, but I would enjoy even more to look through my college one.
College is something that people remember for the rest of their life, and having all those memories in a yearbook should be documented. Plus, it’s even more rewarding to hold something that you’ve worked for the entire year that ends up being distributed to students.
With Gem of the Mountains being discontinued, we don’t have that option anymore to store a college yearbook on our shelves. This should be something we all have access to.
If I had the ability to get Gem of the Mountains up and running again, I would. Yearbooks are so important to our history, especially the history here at the University of Idaho.
Lindsay Trombly can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @lindsay_trombly