QHS yearbooks of any era sought for new memorabilia collection
Nancy Gambell has a really cool volunteer job. The former Quincy Junior-Senior High School cheerleader is in charge of all the best memories students have from their years at the school.
For starters, she curates a special collection of donated varsity jackets, letter sweaters and other memorabilia.
Walk through the halls at QJSHS and you’ll see framed displays of the jackets and sweaters with their distinctive “moss-stitched” chenille block letters and other treasured mementos from many class years.
Gambell also oversees the dedication of stone benches engraved by Quincy’s Stonehenge Signs that are placed about the campus to honor teachers and students. This is a mission she willingly accepted 10 years ago when the school adopted its Trojan Terrace and offered families and donors the chance to have engraved bricks, pavers and benches installed on the school grounds.
Now, she’s on a new quest — looking for old Quincy High yearbooks to include in a new commemorative collection.
“The Golden Grad Class of 1969 has restored and repurposed a beautiful old cabinet to make a home for our new display of Quincy High yearbooks,” Gambell said in the school library on a recent fall afternoon, giving a tour of the project. “We welcome people to come and see our 100 years of annuals, yearbooks and ‘Pines.’ They’ll love it.”
She has spent many hours inventorying the yearbooks on hand and is requesting folks in Plumas County communities, and elsewhere, who may have old Quincy High yearbooks to consider donating them to the collection.
“Quincy yearbooks from any year, in any condition, are welcome,” Gambell explained. “I would love to fill up our reserves with any of those forgotten volumes. We will honor them.”
She has more ideas, too. She’s exploring possibly offering some of the extra annuals to QJSHS alumni who might have lost theirs in a move, for example. To restore and preserve about two dozen of the oldest, earliest treasured yearbooks, Gambell is considering asking for funding donations.
If you’d like to donate a yearbook, there’s plenty of room in the new display case, so please drop donations off with Jennifer Nesbit at the high school’s main office or email Nancy Gambell at [email protected]
