Students will not get the 2013 yearbook until the end of May, but tomorrow is the staff’s deadline for the book to be sent off to the publishing plant.

“We’ve been having a lot of extra work nights,” co Editor-in-Chief Riley Heruska said. “We have at least two a week, and me and my co-editor, Kate stay until at least 8 pretty much every night, and lately we have been staying until 9 or 10 to get the yearbook done.”

After a slow start in the beginning of the year, the staff is working frantically to make up for lost time.

“We started coming up with ideas in August at our workshop,” Editor Kate Hessong said. “However, we didn’t actually open InDesign until October.”

Although the late start has caused some added stress, the staff is pitching in to knock out the remaining pages before the looming deadline.

“It was our fault that we waited so long for the deadlines,” junior staff member Sarah Hamilton said. “But now that we have this deadline, everyone has put in more time and effort to get it finished for the school.”

The added stress, however, has been motivating for the staff and especially for the editors who spend most of their day working to finish on time.

“Riley and I have been staying in here pretty much every single night after school,” Hessong said. “We come in the mornings, we eat lunch in here, then I stay here for three periods, and come back after school. We also have two work nights a week where everyone comes in, so we’re really just trying to push through and finish it.”

The book was nowhere near done before the final push a few weeks ago, but the staff has stepped up to help during the stressful time.

“A month ago I was really worried, but the staff has a lot of energy and is really stepping up. The creativity is flowing,” Advisor Mary Woodruff said. “I think this is a group that works well under pressure.”

Finishing the book is not the only concern weighing on the minds of those trying to create a great final product for the school.

“I know we’ll get it done,” Hessong said. “I know we have a really great staff that is going to work really hard to finish it, but since we have been working so hard on it, I’m worried about how everyone will accept it when we hand it out in May. I want people to really like it since we worked so hard on it.”

Although it is stressful in the last few weeks before the deadline, the final product will make it all worth it.

“We all love to see the book after it is done when we can all enjoy it,” Hamilton said. “It’s really good to see that all the effort that you’ve put in has paid off at the end of the year.”

The “final deadline” this week, however, just means that the drafts of the pages are submitted to the publishing plant.

“The book is technically not due until after Spring Break, but we have to have sent off all of the spreads before Spring Break,” Heruska said. “Then we will have a three day turnaround for proofs that come from the publishing plant, and after that the book will be completely finished.”

One spread is two-pages of the yearbook, and each spread will be looked over by many eyes to edit before the final drafts are sent in.

“First we send in a digital copy of each spread,” Heruska said. “Then the spread will come back on a sheet of paper so that we can go through each one and edit them to make sure they are ready to go into the book. I’m nervous about things falling through the cracks because there is so much to do in so little time.”

Even with the stressful times ahead for the yearbook staff, they are still in high spirits.

“I think that it is really stressful, but I know that we can get it done,” sophomore Chandler Durow said. “I’m not worried because I know that everyone else will do their part to make sure that the yearbook will be the best that it can be.”

Although the deadlines are currently a burden for the staff, they have impressed their editors with the dedication and hard work that has been put into finishing the yearbook.

“There are a lot of people on staff that are stepping it up,” Heruska said. “There are some that are not, but others that are willing to compensate. I’m just really proud of our staff and what we have accomplished so far.”