Eternal Flame 2009 - 2010 Cover
When students look to find out what is going on around campus they usually pick up the latest issue of the Prairie.
But what happens when you head home and want to show everyone what happened the entire year? The solution is to pick up The Eternal Flame, the school’s photobook.
The Le Mirage, the actual yearbook for West Texas, was discontinued in the early 90’s because of disinterest and low sales.
This resulted in no record of the University’s history in book for almost a decade.
However, starting in 2003, student senate proposed an initiative to revive and record WT’s history once again. After a University wide task force was selected and research was conducted, the group decided that a traditional yearbook was not what interested students; pictures and lots of them were what student’s wanted.
With this information in mind and the new directions of the University, the 2003 – 2004 Eternal Flame was published bringing a new life to a simple photo book.
“The main focus was to present pictures to students in a new way, and that way was through a magazine format,” said Lori Westermann, the first Eternal Flame advisor.
The Eternal Flame has been in the new format since its first publication in 2003, and will present its seventh edition this year with the centennial celebration being a main focus. However, with the Eternal Flame still being fairly new, many students are unaware of what it is or what it contains. When asked what the Eternal Flame was, Chase Crossabone, a sophomore theater major said, “Is the Eternal Flame supposed to be what represents what’s on the inside of a buff? Like, it’s what drives a buff from the inside to excel?”
To raise awareness this past year, the Eternal Flame staff handed out free issues of the 2008-2009 edition, held a raffle for students and faculty and interviewed students for profiles in this year’s book.
In edition to raising awareness, the Eternal Flame staff decided to take a new route in the content and layout in this year’s edition.
“This year, my goal was to add more detail to the book. As a whole, the staff wrote longer copy, including student profiles, added taglines to the photographs and included team rosters and other interesting charts,” said Cassie Bable, senior Eternal Flame Editor.
Inspired by the detail of the 100th edition of the Oklahoma University yearbook, the staff included cutlines with each photo, sidebars of events and more detailed stories of the many happenings of WT’s 100th year.
The 2009-2010 edition of the Eternal Flame contains content over every sporting team, each college represented in the University, various organizations and almost every major or minor event that happened this year.
“We pretty much have everything in this book. The biggest things are homecoming, football and the University’s birthday. Even little events like the two snow days, Buffalo Big Give and Hot Dogs for Haiti,” said David Meraz, junior staff writer and 2010-2011 Editor.
With more focus on details, this publication includes names with all pictures, as well as descriptions that tell the story of each picture.
Throughout the book, students and faculty are represned with historical content as well as fun stories that are unique to their experience here at WT.
The staff has worked hard the past year covering events, laying out pages, writing stories and editing to ensure the student body a wonderful photo book for the centennial year.
“The Eternal Flame is made for the students by students. We aim at making the book represent the entire year. It is a great way to preserve memories and something that students can look back at later on in life,” said Bable.
Students of all majors are encouraged to pick up a copy and even apply for a staff position, a class or to just help out when they can.
“Next year I hope to increase the staff so that we are able to cover more events and cover them in more detail. I also want to make sure more organizations are represented,” said Meraz.
He encourages students to get involved with the Eternal Flame and says that applications are available now.
The 2009-2010 edition has hit the press and will be printed and ready for distribution to students soon.