PASD Senior Portrait Collection on DVD

Thousands of Senior Portraits Collected on One DVD

The Portage Area High School Library is selling DVDs containing all available portraits of district graduates going as far back as 1928. If the collection were in book form, it would be nearly 1,000 pages long.

The collection is an outgrowth of a project begun about a decade ago to make digital copies of all the district's yearbooks. During the 2010-11 school year, senior Spencer Price extracted just the senior sections from those scans and created new computer files in which the senior portraits were grouped by decades. He added headings to make the sections easier to navigate, and he and librarian Jay Shuck touched up many of the photos to repair damage and remove printing and scanning flaws.

The collection covers all graduating classes from 1949, when Portage Township and Portage Borough joined districts, through 2011. In addition, the DVD includes pictures from just the borough for the years 1928, '30, '35, '37, '38, '39, '41, '46, '47 and '48. The township is represented for the years 1936, '37, '38, '42, '43, '44, '45, '46, '47 and '48.

The photos come from a variety of sources--not just yearbooks. "We'll keep adding to collection as more senior pictures become available," said Shuck. "In fact, we're already on the third edition."

To view the files, a purchaser needs a computer with a DVD drive and free Adobe Reader software.

A DVD costs $5 if picked up at the school or $7 if it needs to be shipped. A disk can be reserved by contacting Shuck at 736-9636 ext. 1540 or at jshuck@mail.portageareasd.org.