Emily Walker is hard to pin down. When I look in her classroom, I find it empty. Not one to give up so quickly, I ask around to see if anyone might know where she is, and someone suggests to me the front office. Sure enough, when I go up there, I find her in Mrs. Burson’s office, preparing to take a photo of a support staff group of visiting therapists. As I find out, as busy as she is, it is a miracle I’ve been able to get some of her time.

For 13 years, Mrs. Walker has been a teacher at Cartersville High School, mostly known for teaching AP Psychology and US History, courses with a byproduct of limiting her interactions with freshmen. All those things may seem like enough to any sane person, but Mrs. Walker has added another role to her repertoire by becoming the sponsor for CAHISCO, the group that runs the Cartersville High School yearbook. Previously, Business and Technology teacher Mrs. Spradley was in charge, but after ten years, the growth of her pathway shifted her priorities. “Mrs. Tierce approached the social studies department and asked if any of us would be interested,” Mrs. Walker explains of her ascension. Though she’s recently taken up the mantle, the yearbook course’s style has enticed her for a long time. “I enjoy the relationships that this type of class brings, like getting to work more one-on-one with students, getting to… like, really share ideas and be creative with students, […] instead of just playing a teacher role all the time.”

Mrs. Walker relies on her students almost as heavily as they do on her. “The cool part about Yearbook is that it’s a student publication, and while I am the teacher for the course, I’m really just guiding a group of students,” she says. It also helps most of her leadership has worked on the yearbook previously, but having them move into a different role from their previous staff position provides some challenges. “There were things that they didn’t do last year and are having to learn to do […] I’m also having to learn to do them at the same time.” Her leadership, comprised of co-editors Addy Thompson and Melissa Portillo, copy editor Yarizbel Pineda, photography editor Daniel Piña and business manager Samantha Herrera, certainly impresses her; “they’re fantastic,” she states.

When I ask if she has any experience, she replies, “no,” with a little chuckle, but I don’t doubt her ability. Her determination and enthusiasm for this project prove she can meet any problem head-on, and her cherub-like glee communicates to me as much as ten years of experience.

Part of that passion comes from her projected changes. “This year, we’re changing to a summer delivery of the yearbook, so [CHS students] will be getting the yearbook in July […] That has been done in years past, but it’s been a while since we’ve done it here.” Though the extra time a summer delivery affords is worth its weight in gold in terms of prep time, and including snapshots of spring will undoubtedly endear her even more to the student body, it presents its challenges. “We added those extra pages to the book, so we’ve kind of been starting from scratch,” she says, leaving the template from previous years as more of an idea of the layout than an instructional guide.

Students can also look forward to perhaps spotting a parent or grandparent’s face peeking through time in their yearbook.

“This year’s book is going to have a little bit of some history throwbacks in it … because we’re gonna be looking at the new building opening in December, so we’re going to be contrasting […] kind of the new versus the old.”

However, Mrs. Walker’s favorite part of CAHISCO has little to do with the course material. “Really, what I enjoy about yearbook most is that I get to have that personal relationship with kids. Coaching was always my favorite part of teaching, because you get to build those relationships.” As her time as swim coach has come to a close, the yearbook’s fostering of independence in its students provides her with an outlet to direct those qualities, not just to be a teacher, but a mentor.

As we part, she has one final message for me:

“There’s a lot more going on with the yearbook than you would think, and I certainly have a lot of respect for Mrs. Spradley and what she has put into this for ten years. To have done this for ten years is an insane amount of work.”

I would have to agree.