The Panorama yearbook staff recently announced its Editors for next year, and in doing so, made history.

Although the staff has had co-Editors before, this time, there will be three: juniors Ella Hollis, Shaylie Rogers and Elizabeth Lawson.

Hollis, Rogers and Lawson have been a part of the yearbook staff for three years and are a close-knit group.

Although a group of three Editors is unusual, Lawson said that’s part of what she’s looking forward to.

“I think it’s really exciting,” she said. “The fact that it’s never been done before makes me excited to see how it will go.”

Rogers said that getting to lead with Hollis and Lawson is a positive.

“It feels really special because I get to share the role of Editor with my friends,” she said.

Hollis said it feels as if it’s the culmination of the last three years of hard work.

“It’s definitely a surreal feeling because I know we’ve all been looking forward to this since we were freshmen,” she said. “We’ve all been working towards this goal, and getting to do it with two of my close friends, I’m really excited.”

Yearbook adviser Alex Hollis said that he decided to name the three as Editors rather than have them compete against each other because they all agreed they would be better as a unit.

“This year was a real dilemma thinking about choosing who was going to be the leader of the staff because I had so many qualified people to do it,” he said. “Some years it’s very clear to see which person needs to do it and then some years you’ve got multiple people that it could be. So ultimately Ella, Shaylie and Elizabeth were the ones who wanted the opportunity to be Editor-in-Chief. Since it was narrowed down to three by the group, I let those three talk through what they thought would be a fair selection process. They came to me and said, ‘What if we shared the responsibilities?’”

Alex Hollis said it was a relief that they posed the solution.

“It makes me glad we didn’t have to exclude someone,” he said.

Other staff members are excited about the trio.

“It is what is best for our staff, and I think they will do very well because they’re all very organized and precise with their work,” junior Libby Whitlow said.

And those are positive traits for the Editors because leading the yearbook staff comes with a lot of responsibilities.

“We just have to take control of the classroom and step up and be a leader in there,” Rogers said.

These responsibilities include overseeing every aspect of production and also building a productive culture.

“We definitely have to have a huge leadership role over the whole staff,” Ella Hollis said.  “We’ve got to make sure, you know, we get the pictures taken, and we get the stories written and the interviews and all of that, just making sure everybody meets their deadlines and also that we’re all having a good time while we’re doing it.”

Lawson agrees that cultivating a good environment is a critical part of their role.

“I think I just want to have a hardworking staff, a staff who wants to be there, and I want to make the environment a place they actually want to be and where they want to work hard,” Lawson said.

In the end, the goal for all three is to produce not only the yearbook but also a yearbook they’re proud of. Ella Hollis said she believes that will happen:

“I think we’re going to make the best book yet because it’s our senior year, and it is going to mean a lot to us.”