Buness: 2012 yearbooks on the way

One of the most popular shows for kids on television in the last decade was Where On Earth Is Carmen San Diego as it scoured the world for the location of a thief who steals valuable artifacts from around the globe.

For Wrangell High School students and parents, one question could be related to the title of that show – Where In The World Are The Class of 2012 Yearbooks?

The yearbooks, which were to be delivered around May of last year, are now scheduled to be in the hands of parents and students in late October.

WHS principal Monty Buness said as much in an apologetic email to parents this week.

“We regret to inform you that the yearbooks have still not arrived at this point,” his email states. “We were late getting them out to the vendor at the end of the year and due to some miscommunications on our side and on the side of the vendor, the processing was delayed. We were expecting them to be shipped out several weeks ago, but some of the files that we sent were corrupted and we had to start the process over from scratch.”

According to Buness, he has spoken with the production manager involved in printing and binding the yearbooks and they have given a date of Oct. 19 as the shipping date and the books are expected to arrive in Wrangell on Oct. 26.

New safeguards to ensure there won’t be a repeat performance have also been put into place, Buness said. 

“We have implemented a new uploading procedure to the vendor to ensure that this does not happen again,” Buness added. “We are also meeting with our vendor’s production and technology staff later this week and are developing a timeline that will have this year’s yearbooks delivered to our school by the first week in May. I am confident that we will not have this issue again.”

Once the yearbooks arrive, Buness said the district would be happy to mail them out to former students, and that there will be a yearbook signing party just before Christmas for anyone who would like to come in and get their classmates to sign their yearbooks.

“Again, I apologize for the yearbook snafu this year, and we have taken strict measures to make sure that this never happens again,” Buness said.

District superintendent Rich Rhodes echoed Buness apologetic sentiment as well.

“The goal is usually to have them out before the end of the school year,” Rhodes said. “But, I’m confident they are on the way. We’re confident we’ve fixed the problem and this won’t happen again.”