seymour high school publishes cookbook

by Brooke Stevenson
brooke@seymourherald.com
     In an effort to raise money to benefit the library, Seymour High School will publish a cookbook.
     Over 400 of the best recipes from teachers, staff members, retirees, and substitute teachers have been collected and compiled into an attractive keepsake cookbook.
    “We came up with the idea of the cookbook earlier this year, we sort of launched a year long fundraising campaign because our library is in need,” said Seymour High School Librarian Shannon Blair-Brooks.
     The library has been working on the year long fundraising endeavor to raise money for new student computers and additional shelving. All proceeds from the cookbook sales will go to the Seymour High School library.
    “We have standards that say that we need one computer for every 100 students, and we are actually a few computers short of meeting that requirement,” Blair-Brooks said. “In addition to that the computers that we do have are about 10 years old.
     “Unfortunately there is not a lot of money in the budget for library computers, the little money that we do have we try to put toward books.”
    She added that the shelving in the library is nearly as old as the school itself and is very old and rickety.
    “We are also getting more books and we need more space,” she said.
      For the cover of the cookbook the library held a student art contest to get the students involved in the fundraiser.
    “We decided that instead of just doing a stock cover to go on top we wanted something really special and unique,” Blair-Brooks said.
    The cookbook cover will feature the original artwork of Seymour High School student, Kayla Clabo.
    Kayla is a senior in Tami McCroskey’s advanced art class at SHS. In addition to having her artwork featured on the cookbook cover; Kayla won a $25 cash prize.
    “Kayla is just a wonderful young lady and we liked hers best because it had the eagle which represented Seymour and had a chef’s hat and mixing bowl and it was really colorful and bright,” Blair-Brooks said.
    Cookbooks will be available in May and will sell for $12. The Seymour High School librarians are currently pre-selling cookbooks for the discounted price of $10.
    In addition to the money brought in by the cookbook, the Modern Woodmen of Seymour approached the school and said if the library could sell $2,000 worth of book then the organization would match that amount.
    “We are really excited about that,” Blair-Brooks said. “We’re hoping we can make more than $2,000, but if we make $2,000 we can turn that into $4,000 just through the Modern Woodmen’s work.”
     For more information, or to pre-order a cookbook, contact Seymour High School at (865) 577-7040 or email a librarian at shannonblair@sevier.org .