With the yearbooks getting closer to being shipped to school, and students being reminded to buy their yearbooks, seniors are realizing they were never asked to provide senior quotes. After confirmation from yearbook staff that like last year, there would be no senior quotes in the yearbook, senior Alex Vasquez began putting up posters campaigning for senior quotes to be “brought back,” despite they were never included in Johnson yearbooks in the first place. 

“I don’t want these poor senior’s last year to be taken away, because these quotes are important to everyone,” Vasquez said. “Everybody is like, ‘Where are the quotes going?’ and ‘I’ll be very upset if there’s no quotes.’”

Vasquez used his graphic design skills and humor to create posters that would catch student’s attention, even using the likes of Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. and Principal Brett Miksch for his posters. 

“People listen to great leaders, and we need great leaders to guide this country and I’m pretty sure they would be ok if I used their images for this one little thing,” Vasquez said. “In this day and age, words don’t convey as much of a message as bright, flashy images do as well as famous people. And their inclusion is funny.”

Vasquez is not the only senior who wondered about senior quotes. Bryce Ward was also confused when he heard that senior quotes were not included this year. 

“I definitely think senior quotes should be included,” Ward said. “I think they are important because they allow us to leave our mark on this school in even the tiniest way, and allow us to express ourselves one last time before we go out.”

While senior yearbook quotes might be considered a tradition, they are actually rarely included in yearbooks these days. Senior yearbook co-editor Victoria Cerna is aware of a few of the problems they can cause and why the trend is no longer as popular as it used to be.

“I think that senior quotes can be fun and are a way for a student to express themselves,” Cerna said. “However, from a yearbook standpoint I don’t think it’s a good idea that they be added. Design-wise, I feel like they could be hard to incorporate on the portraits page and then if not every senior submits one, the design is inconsistent.”

Aside from design issues that senior quotes present, they would also have to be checked for the content of what is in the quote, and ensure that everything is appropriate. Some quotes can seem appropriate at surface level, but can contain double meanings. There is also the issue with seniors recycling quotes from their favorite celebrity and not attributing the quote to the original source.

“I think it is the people’s responsibility to give a quote that is not completely inappropriate, but I also think it is the yearbook’s responsibility to take those inappropriate quotes and get them out of there,” Ward said. “There would definitely be some very obvious senior quotes you could omit.”

Vasquez stands strong in his position, and believes that senior quotes are essential to the yearbook and the seniors that are in it. 

“We are all in the yearbook, just one face after another, without any individual, creative freedom of a quote,” Vasquez said. “Why don’t they just put numbers on our names instead? No yearbook quotes, no individual freedom. Where does it end?”