Play the Game of Student Life with 80 Yearbooks From Randolph County

A high school student in a suit and bow tie standing behind another student seated in a chair. The seated student is wearing a strapless dress with a full skirt.
Miss Oak Leaf (Pat Reynolds) and Mr. Acorn (D.J. Cagle) in the 1955 edition of “Oak Leaves” (Star High School).

Eighty high school yearbooks from Randolph County have been added to our site thanks to our partner, the Randolph County Public Library. This batch includes yearbooks from 15 schools: Trinity High School, Randleman High School, Star High School, Asheboro High School, Gray’s Chapel High School, Eastern Randolph Senior High School, Franklinville School, Coleridge High School, Biscoe High School, Farmer High School, Seagrove High School, Ramseur High School, Staley High School, Bennett High School, and Troy High School.

These yearbooks also span several decades of the county’s history, starting in 1944 with The Ash-Hi-Life and running through 1973, with four yearbook editions from Trinity, Randleman, Asheboro High, and Eastern Randolph.

Some of the special features in these yearbooks include a homecoming court straight out of a Ralph Lauren ad, the requisite reference to The Byrds, and pages of heartfelt notes from classmates. But one yearbook staff got especially creative, designing a board game that students can play with just their yearbooks and a coin to toss.

A spread of two blue yearbook pages with a winding yellow path called "The Game of Student Life." Each space on the path describes an event in the life of a high schooler and directs the player to make their next move.
The Game of Student Life from the 1972 “Links” (Eastern Randolph Senior High School).

The game, presumably modeled after the game Life, describes events that still sound familiar to contemporary high school students. One square reads, “Back to school. Laugh at sophomores — get lecture on maturity. Lose 1 turn.” Others are less relatable: “Term papers: your typist charges you $1.50 a page and you run out of money on page 2 — Lose turn.” While the board does seem to be weighted toward academic and social pitfalls, at least all players start with a credit (since “Everybody passes biology first time around!”).

You can see all 80 yearbooks (so many!) here. You can also explore all of our digitized high school yearbooks by school name, location, and year in our North Carolina Yearbooks collection. To see more from Randolph County Public Library, visit their partner page and their website.


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