County fair judges give first-place ribbons to Moccasin, Legionnaire

The San Diego County Fair's Student Showcase includes high school yearbooks. Fallbrook High School's yearbook, the Moccasin, received a first-place ribbon for the first time in three years. Bonsall High School was given first-place honors for the Legionnaire while the individual Bonsall students who entered the 2-D Animation and Motion Graphics competitions all received first-place awards.

The fair's Student Showcase does not have head-to-head judging other than for Best of Class or Best of Show. A point system determines whether individual entries receive first, second, or third place. This year, 18 yearbooks were given second-place ribbons and 15 schools received third-place awards.

"I think it just reflects on the dedication of the students on the staff and the effort they put into hopefully creating a good book," said Fallbrook High School yearbook advisor Dan Bachman.

The title of this year's Moccasin was "Warriors in the House". "That was to reflect the house system that the high school transitioned to," Bachman said.

Bachman didn't know that he would be the Moccasin advisor for 2014-15 until he took over when that school year started. "That was definitely a trial by fire and a learning experience," Bachman said.

Since Bachman was working with the Temecula-based yearbook company yb-squared, his learning included the interaction with yb-squared staff.

"They were fantastic to work with," Bachman said. "They were great in helping me to organize and improve and learn all the processes."

This year Bachman worked with yb-squared on multiple covers. "We tried something unique," Bachman said.

The students had three potential yearbook covers: one with the Fallbrook Public Utility District's Rattlesnake Reservoir the high school's seniors paint with their graduation year, one with the clock tower in the school quad, and one with the Noize Boyz student spirit section. The initial plan was to put the final cover to a student body vote, but yb-squared offered to produce three different covers. "It wound up being pretty darn successful," Bachman said.

Those who purchased yearbooks chose their cover. "People enjoyed the ability to pick their cover, and pretty much everybody got what they wanted," Bachman said.

The school exhausted its supply of 2017 yearbooks for sale. "I would imagine we haven't sold out of yearbooks in a good 10 years," Bachman said.

The first-place award complemented the innovative cover choices and the yearbook selling out. "It was a successful year," Bachman said.

The 2017 Moccasin is 252 pages.

Bonsall High School received first-place awards for the Legionnaire during the school's first two years as well as this year while Fallbrook High School had second-place ribbons in 2015 and 2016.

"I think it would be remiss not to celebrate Fallbrook's first place," said Bonsall High School principal Lee Fleming.

The third issue of the Legionnaire is titled "#connected" and is 75 pages. "It's definitely our best one so far," Fleming said.

"I was very proud of our kids this year," Fleming said. "The kids did a good job."

The Bonsall Unified School District and Palomar College have a dual enrollment partnership agreement in which Palomar College instructors teach classes at Bonsall High School and the students receive both high school and college credit. That includes a graphic communications class taught by Wade Rollins.

"Whatever they're learning they seem to be doing well," Fleming said.

Coral Walters, Jacob Neidner, Megan Nowosad, Brian Green, Kyle Burg, Daisy Cruz, Brodey Steil, Juan Cruz, and Sherlyn Tomas were Bonsall High School students during 2016-17 but were designated as Palomar College students in the fair's 2-D Animation and Motion Graphics competitions. All nine received first-place ribbons for their submitted work.

"That's so cool – I'm very proud of them," said Fleming. "That was a particularly neat one. It shows the benefit of having a community college concurrent enrollment course."