School yearbook photos: 'No' to cats and chihuahuas. 'Yes' to firearms?
At Broken Bow High School聽in Nebraska seniors engaging in shooting as a competitive sport are now allowed to pose with guns for their yearbook portraits just as a football player might choose to hold up a game winning ball, according to school principal Rusty Kluender.
聽鈥淲e have a lot of our students got to competitions and bring back trophies and we thought it was about time to honor them just as we do those participating in other sports,鈥� Mr. Kluender says in a phone conversation.
On Monday聽the Broken Bow school board adopted a new policy that allows the firearms to be present in senior photos.
This came, according to Kluender, after a student鈥檚 submission of such a photo for last year鈥檚 yearbook had been denied.
To put this into perspective, the has a grand total of 59 seniors. 鈥淲e had between three and seven requests for portraits with firearms to be allowed鈥� says the principal.
鈥淚t鈥檚 like high school rodeo is a sport but it鈥檚 not a regular sanctioned school sport but still the students want to celebrate their achievements,鈥� Kluender explains. 鈥淲e allow high school rodeo participants to have a picture with their horse for the yearbook, so this just made sense.鈥�
聽Kluender also explained that hunting and shooting for sport are popular pastimes in the rural town of about 3,500.
This resolution is a far cry from聽theover teenager Draven Rodriguez's senior portrait 聽鈥� with his cat. His Schenectady, N.Y. school would not allow the portrait of聽him holding his cat, Mr. Bigglesworth, and Schenectady High School principal Diane Wilkinson holding her Chihuahua, Vivienne ,surrounded by laser beams to became the student鈥檚 official yearbook photo.
The student-cat-principal-chihuahua-laser photo will make it into the yearbook 鈥渟omewhere鈥� according to news reports, just not as his official portrait shot.
Meanwhile, the Nebraska school board has made it clear that images submitted for publication as yearbook portraits with firearms must be tasteful.
聽鈥淭here was a sense that to allow a student to have a firearm, as long as it was done in a tasteful manner in terms of a hunting or sporting-type picture, that that might be okay,鈥� school district superintendent Mark Sievering said,聽.
聽Perhaps the Nebraska principal had the best take on yearbook images and which should be allowed.
聽鈥淚t鈥檚 about being positive,鈥� Kluender says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 about celebrating something in the student鈥檚 life.鈥�
