The Reflector

Issue date: 4/25/08 Section: News

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Due to rising costs and a low volume of student orders, this year's edition of the Reveille will be the last published version.

The Reveille has recorded over 100 years of Mississippi State University history.

The Reveille's name originated from Mississippi A&M's beginnings as a military school. Reveille, a bugler's tune that is played during first formation, was often heard around campus.

Senior library associate Betty Self said the Reveille began production because of the school's need to archive college life. At the beginning of publication, four people worked on the editorial staff: M.W. Chapman, G. H. Alford, T.P. Guyton and W.E. Hearon. By the time the engravers finished with the first publication, only one staff member still attended school; the other three enlisted in the Army during the Spanish-American War.

In 1913, the Reveille's name was changed to the Private '13. The yearbook's name was changed due to a strike by the enlisted students. The ranked officers demoted to the rank of private.

The only year the Reveille did not appear was in 1944, due to World War II. Sixty-three years after the war, the Reveille will halt publication.

Due to low demand, lack of interest and technological advances, more and more college annuals are closing their pages.
Eddie Keith, director of the Colvard Student Union and advisor for the Reveille, said he has noticed a continued decline in interest for the yearbook.

"It just seems like through the years the number of people who have bought books, the number of people who have their picture made to be in the book have just dwindled," he said.

Reveille co-editor Alayne White said even though almost 17,000 students are enrolled at MSU, only 386 yearbooks had been order as of April 1. She said the amount of orders have gradually declined over the past years.

"700 editions were ordered last year," White said. "There were 1,200 sold the year before."

White said the yearbook has lowered the price of their publication to entice orders.

"[The Reveille] was $20 cheaper this year compared to last year's," she said. "We thought it would help sales, but it didn't."

The Reveille also used more of the book's space for advertising, but sales still couldn't compete with production costs.

In the past, the price of the yearbook was included in tuition, allowing students to pick up the annual if they wanted one. The Reveille staff would have an abundance of annuals that no one would come and pick up.

"We had a hard time giving them away," Keith says.

MSU alumnus and Southern Rural Development Center editor Julianna Brown said that students might regret not purchasing a copy of the annual in the future.

"Call me crazy, but I just don't think you'll get that same feeling of nostalgia browsing your [picture] album on Facebook when you're 65," she said.

Emily Stinson, English department lecturer and MSU alumnus, said she remembers flipping through her parent's copies of older editions of the Reveille.

"Knowing that the good old days will stop in 2008, at least in the form of an MSU annual, seems awkward," Stinson said.

Senior communication major Jessica Ward said the Reveille's closure does not affect her.

"I've never bought a book or had my picture taken [for the Reveille]," Ward said.

Keith said the loss of a historical MSU institution like the Reveille is a loss for all of its students.

"We won't have a written record of the year in the life of Mississippi State students," Keith said. ""To me that's the saddest part. When you get to be 30 [or] 40 years old, you look back and everybody that didn't buy a book will want one, but by then it'll be too late."

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