Anaheim
Work with the best and prepare for 2025 by attending the exclusive Elite Weekend workshop in Anaheim.
You and a few key staff members will develop your 2025 theme package with the finest yearbook instructors.
Meet the instructors:
Kathy Beers teaches photojournalism, and advises The Creek yearbook at Timber Creek High School in Fort Worth, Texas. Beers encourages her students to push the boundaries in theme and design. Her staff has won numerous state and national awards, including a “Best of the Best” in Texas and a CSPA Crown. She adores her family, dog and yearbooks (in that order). Beers treasures all of her own yearbooks, including her 8th grade one in which her crush wrote that she talked like an orange. She truly loves yearbooks and believes every kid should get one, every year.
Jim Jordan is the former yearbook adviser at Del Campo High School in Fair Oaks, California, and now a special consultant for Walsworth Yearbooks. He was a yearbook adviser for 35 years, and over the years the Decamhian yearbook earned numerous Pacemaker and CSPA Gold Crown honors. The Decamhian was recognized in 2022 as having earned the second-highest number of Pacemakers in NSPA’s 100 year history. Jordan was the 1996 JEA Yearbook Adviser of the Year, and has received CSPA Gold Key, NSPA Pioneer, JEA Medal of Merit and JEA Lifetime Achievement awards. He received the Linda S. Puntney Teacher Inspiration Award in 2021. He now shares his expertise with students and advisers at workshops and conventions across the country and leads mentorship through the Adviser Mentor Program. He was among the first to embrace desktop technology in the 1980s and apply it to yearbook, and he remains an innovator in the yearbook industry.
Crystal Kazmierski advised the Arrowhead Christian Academy “Wings” yearbook staff in Redlands, Calif. where she taught theater, journalism, photography and graphic design. Her students were honored with both CSPA Crown and NSPA Pacemaker awards for 23 consecutive years. Kazmierski was the 2000 JEA National Yearbook Adviser of the year. She received CSPA’s Gold Key award in 2002 and NSPA’s Pioneer award in 2007. She continues to teach design and writing at journalism workshops. Currently she is a designer and writer for the development office at Redlands Christian Schools and a designer and docent tour guide for the Gamble House in Pasadena.
Susan Massy, who retired from Shawnee Mission Northwest High School, built a journalism empire with the school’s yearbook, news magazine and online publications. The Lair was named #1 in NSPA’s Top 100 and the Northwest Passage was listed in the Top 100 in 2020. Both have won numerous Pacemakers and Gold Crowns during her 45-year career as a journalism instructor and publications adviser. In 1999, Massy was named the National Yearbook Teacher of the Year by the Journalism Education Association.She has received the Engel Award (Kansas Journalism Teacher of the Year), NSPA’s Pioneer Award, JEA’s Medal of Merit, the Lifetime Achievement Award (2023) and CSPA’s Charles O’Malley Teaching Award (2023). Massy continues to travel nationally to work with individual staffs as well as present at state and national conventions and summer workshops.
Jim McCrossen is in his 34th year helping journalism students find their voice in a very loud and busy world. McCrossen has spent his entire teaching career in the Blue Valley School District in Overland Park, Kan. teaching and advising two years at Blue Valley North and the past 32 at Blue Valley Northwest, where he advises the Horizon yearbook, The Express newspaper and the BVNWnews.com website. McCrossen is a JEA Distinguished Yearbook Adviser, an NSPA Pioneer Award recipient and a former Kansas journalism teacher of the year. He is a former award-winning photojournalist in Ventura County, Calif. He loves teaching photography mostly because he’s not very good with words. His students have won numerous awards for their work, and they have not won numerous awards, as well. McCrossen likes red meat, chocolate and Cheetos.
Christina Porcelli advises the award-winning Panther Yearbook at H.B. Plant High School in Tampa, Florida, where she teaches journalism and also advises the newspaper and literary magazine. During her eight years with the program, the Panther has been awarded two Pacemakers and six Pacemaker finalists from NSPA, as well as two Gold Crowns and four Silver Crowns from CSPA. Porcelli began her advising career with The Cobra Yearbook at Coleman Middle School in Tampa, Florida, where she advised for five years. Porcelli is an Adobe certified visual design specialist, who focuses on developing her students into certified graphic designers.
Sabrina Schmitz, CJE, is a Walsworth Yearbooks representative, key accounts specialist and the former publications adviser at J.W. Mitchell High School in Trinity, Florida. Under her leadership, The Stampede yearbook earned multiple CSPA Crowns, an NSPA Pacemaker, and was a Design of the Year Finalist. She was Teacher of the Year in 2013, was a District Teacher of the Year Finalist, and teaches at workshops and conventions nationwide.
Ronna Sparks-Woodward, MJE, advises the Ayrie yearbook at Liberty North High School in Liberty, Missouri. After receiving her certification to teach English and journalism from the State of Missouri, Sparks-Woodward has advised 25 yearbooks and looks forward to more years advising. She loves almost every aspect of yearbook, from working with her students to organize the foundational aspects to seeing pages go from rough sketches to complete layouts. Her students’ work has consistently earned Gold Medals from CSPA and All Americans from NSPA, and several books have earned Pacemaker nominees from NSPA and Gold and Silver Crowns from CSPA.
Becky Lucas Tate, CJE has spent 35 years advising the newspaper and yearbook at her alma mater, Shawnee Mission North High School. She's deeply involved in scholastic journalism through roles with the Kansas Scholastic Press Association and the National Scholastic Press Association. Her accolades include CSPA’s Gold Key, a Medal of Merit from JEA, the H.L. Hall National Journalism Adviser of the Year (2019), and the 2024 Linda S. Puntney Teacher Inspiration Award. Tate also leads as KSPA Board president and is president-elect on the NSPA Board. When not working, she enjoys all things Disney.
Mike Taylor, CJE, is a Key Accounts Manager with Walsworth Yearbooks. He taught yearbook, newspaper and television production at Lecanto High School, Lecanto, Florida, for 13 years, where his publications staffs won numerous awards. Taylor has been awarded the JEA Medal of Merit, CSPA Gold Key and Florida Scholastic Press Association Gold Medallion. As a well-known instructor at workshops and conventions across the country, he has consulted with countless yearbook staffs to help them realize their potential in creating journalistic yearbooks.