During the Strawberry Festival on May 25, all members of the Hill community will receive the Dial as a concluding symbol of the school year. On that day, as a tradition, students and teachers sign each other’s yearbook pages and comment on the past year’s memories. This year, though undergoing slight difficulties and changes, the Dial maintained its past traditions and continued with some creative elements.

In the Dial, all sixth formers get their own pages, where they write shoutouts to thank those people who accompanied them to graduation and include photos that remind them of the special memories they have made with their friends. “To me, Dial is like a time capsule. It carries our memory of the Hill and its memory of us. I know years later, if I choose to open it by chance, I shall be taken back to the people, the com- munity, and the Hill family through those pages,” Jojo Zhu ’22 explained, as she discussed how the Dial is significant to her after four years at Hill.

Amy Winter, adviser to the Dial, reflected on the importance of the Dial not only to the sixth formers but also to the Hill community as a whole: “It captures the highlights of the school year and often reflects what is going on in the world.” Win- ter has contributed a lot to this year’s Dial, as she designed most page templates, organized the page content, and communicated with all sixth formers regarding the special category photos such as sixth form superlative.

Winter mentioned that this year’s Dial is special because it has returned to the original navy blue cover. She also remarked that the Dial staff incorporated lots of artistic shots taken by the school’s photographers, which would remind students of how pretty the campus was in the fall, how the chapel was decorated during the holiday season, and how it felt on the first day of spoon banging and singing the school fight song.

However, the Dial staff has struggled in recent years due to the pan- demic. “There were no fall sports; there weren’t a lot of activities; clubs couldn’t meet; and many students

were off campus. I went back to the 1919 edition of the Dial that was created during the Spanish Flu and was able to see that the editors of that book had the same problems I was having! I was able to see his- tory repeating itself !” Winter said. She continued, “That’s what makes a yearbook so special; you can look back and see what the school was like through history and see not only how it has changed but ways that it has stayed the same and kept traditions.”

Helen Ling ’23, a member of the Dial staff, was grateful for working on the Dial with Winter. “It was an enjoyable experience. Mrs. Winter is always patient with and nice to us. Whenever we had questions, she al- ways answered thoroughly with great details.” When asked about what she particularly enjoyed about the process, Ling continued, “By working for the Dial, I have a great platform to know more people at the school and learn more about the various ac- tivities offered at Hill.”

Looking into the future, Winter stressed the importance of amplifying students’ voices in this historical book. This year, only a few students signed up for the Dial during after- noon activity, which made it hard to have all the content and design in on time. Therefore, she proposed the probability of turning the Dial into a student-led publication, as she envisions some students devoting their creativity and taking responsibility for the content that goes into the Dial.

Catriona Miller, co-director of the Humphrey Family Writing Center, oversees Hill’s publications and is excited to expand student leadership on the Dial. She mentioned that the Dial is planning to have co-editors- in-chief and staff editors next year so that more students can have the opportunity to make decisions about the yearbook.

Additionally, Miller highlighted the time and effort that Mrs. Winter has devoted to the Dial: “Mrs. Winter has ensured that the Dial has been published the past few years despite the obstacles created by COVID-19. We are so grateful for all her hard work, and I hope that the seniors stop by her office in the next few weeks to say thank you.”