Hindsight is always 20-20. Do you wish you had gotten a yearbook back in high school?

If you’re a Lakeview High School alum you may just be in luck. 

Lakeview’s yearbook staff will be holding a yearbook garage sale on Saturday, April 27 from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the main entrance of Lakeview High School. 

Books from 1945 to 2013 will be sold for $10, 2014 to 2019 for $20, 2020 to 2022 for $40, and a limited number from 2023 for $80. Unclaimed personalized yearbooks from 1985 to 2015 will also be available for a donation, with proceeds going towards new cameras for the program. 

Darcy Hassing, an English teacher at Lakeview High School, took over the role as the advisor of the school’s yearbook in 2021 and has since been finding ways to connect leftover yearbooks with alumni who missed out. 

“Yearbooks are forever. They are keepsakes to look back on. We have been asked if we are going digital with yearbooks, and we won’t. Once a yearbook is printed, it is there as long as someone has it,” Hassing said. “Digital copies will only be available as long as that platform is available. We thought MySpace would be around forever, and it has already been replaced. Also, we have sold yearbooks to people who have had to replace theirs who were lost or damaged. Yearbooks show almost everything from an entire school year.”

The old yearbooks have been sitting in a closet in the yearbook room for years, some of them decades, and are ready for their new homes. 

“The Personalized ones will be donated. We have had people reach out to us to donate to the State of Michigan Library. They are looking for school yearbooks to add to their collection, so we plan to donate as many as possible. We will keep the non-personalized copies on our shelves and make them available for sale,” Hassing said. “We have been working to clear out the book storage room and there are too many books, so we have been selling them online for about a year. However, many people cannot get to the school during business hours, so we decided to hold a one-day sale to get more into the hands of the community.”

Many people opted out of buying a yearbook in high school because of the high cost – however, this cost can be justified when considering all of the hard work that goes into creating the books. 

“The price of a yearbook is higher this year due to inflation and our costs. The publisher passes the higher costs on to the schools. We rely on senior tribute and business ads to help keep the price down. Also, it is a hardcover yearbook with 270 full-color pages. It also takes the students about 11 months to complete the book,” Hassing said. 

Around 31% of students at LHS choose KCC as their next step in their academic journey, partly in thanks to the Legacy scholarship –  Alumni, take this great opportunity to look back on your high school years and buy that yearbook you regret leaving behind.