Graduating from high school is one of the last times students may ever see some of their 

peers and friends as they all step into different walks of life. As young adults turn into grown men and women, they start to reflect on their adolescent years.“The Echo” is a newsletter that lets alumni know what their former classmates are up to. For the past 11 years, selected Red ‘n’ Green juniors and the Alumni Association work together every year to produce “The Echo.” This year junior Emilee Wegner and Anna McCarthy worked together to produce “The Echo.” 

 Alumna pat Grahn, 76’ is one of the board members The Red ‘n’ Green gets in contact with to help with production of “The Echo.” 

“The Echo” keeps the BHS Alumni informed on both Alumni Association news and information, the annual banquet, other BHS alumni, and really just helps the alumni keep in touch and be proud of the fact that they graduated from BHS,” Grahn said. 

Although “The Echo” may not focus on each alumni individually, it features information about alumni’s accomplishments, what the banquet speakers will talk about, and information about donations and scholarships. 

“I think “The Echo” is a great way to connect with the alumni and I really enjoy making it. Being able to interview former alumni and being able to hear about where they are today is fulfilling knowing that one day I could be like them,” junior Anna McCarthy said. 

But the production of this project may not be as easy as one would think, considering the editing process and sending “The Echo” back and forth to the Alumni Association for approval takes time. 

“We contact an Alumni Association board member and they give us feedback and tell us what they would like in this year’s edition. Once we get that information we play around with the template and rework it to fit what is needed. We send the template back and forth between a board member and us multiple times to get it how they want it. We then allow other Red ‘n’ Green staff to edit. We then send it back a final time before printing,” junior Emilee Wegner said. 

“The Echo” is a great learning experience for the students who get the opportunity to produce it. 

“I think that it is so exciting that The Red ‘n’ Green staff produce “The Echo.” Working on “The Echo” helps the student gain real life experience. This is a great experience for the future when these students might be assisting their company, church or organization with a newsletter. They are learning layout, learning to write smaller length articles, gaining interview skills, and gaining the skill of listening to what the client (the Alumni Association) wants and needs in the newsletter,” Grahn said. 

The difficulty however is what people do not see while putting together “The Echo.” 

“The Echo” is an entirely different beast now that we’ve officially switched to an online paper. It can be very difficult to format each article or graphic to fit in such a small space yet still make it graphically sound and pleasing to the eye,” senior Camdyn Rohde said. 

However the number of people “The Echo” impacts outweighs the struggle of production.