Idea File Fall 2024

36 | Teaching Moment

ZERO FROM TO $ 3 , 39 5

How the Chamber of Commerce helped revive our business ad sales

R olla High School just celebrated its 76 th volume of the Growler yearbook, and the local business community has been one of our biggest supporters over those past seven decades. When I accepted the role of yearbook adviser in the fall of 2022, I excitedly collected and displayed books from years past. The display garnered the attention of many passersby, and I often found myself perusing old yearbooks with students and colleagues as they flipped through indexes and pages to locate their parents, grandparents and friends. Through the lens of a yearbook adviser, I quickly noticed that in each yearbook, there were pages and pages of ads featuring some of the same businesses I patronize today. I also knew during COVID-19, no business ads were sold – the main priority was safety, and then simply publishing a yearbook. As a new adviser, I wasn’t sure where to even start as I tried to figure out how to revive our business ads. Enter Stevie Kearse.