After yearbook flap, students say sorry with paper hearts


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SPRINGVILLE — Students arrived at Springville High School Monday morning to find paper hearts with kind messages posted on the doors and similar notes written in sidewalk chalk outside.

The display that appeared early Monday morning was an apology from several students at Spanish Fork's Maple Mountain High School. On Friday, a word cloud in the shape of the rival Red Devils' logo appeared in Maple Mountain's yearbook under the title "Describe Springville." It contained traits including "snobby," "greedy," "stupid," "lame," "satanic," and "trash."

Mary Kilpatrick, a Maple Mountain junior, said she and her classmates feel badly that the ordeal cast Springville in a negative light and that it set the tone that Maple Mountain's senior class will go out on.

"We really just want to do our best to turn it around," she said of the messages left by Maple Mountain students at 5:45 a.m.

On Friday, students and parents discovered the graphic when the yearbook was distributed to students, setting off flares in the communities that are just a few miles apart.

Now, the district is creating a procedure to make sure yearbooks are double-checked before they go to the printer, said Nebo School District spokeswoman Lana Hiskey.

"It's very disappointing where one or two students can come up with something that makes it sound like it's from the entire high school — which it is not," she said. Most students were shocked and saddened the page made its way into the yearbook, Hiskey added.

On Monday, Maple Mountain held a school-wide assembly and handed out stickers to paste over the page. The stickers read, "At the end of the day...friends," with logos of schools in the area.

Springville High School Principal Everett Kelepolo called the page an "unfortunate mistake" over the weekend but said he appreciates the school taking steps to rectify what happened.

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To that end, the two schools are planning a service project together to help them move forward.

Brynlee Holmes, junior class president at Maple Mountain, said she hopes the controversy will bring the schools closer.

"I can already see it uniting our two schools more," she said.

In a video posted to YouTube Monday, several Maple Mountain students also apologized, saying the yearbook page didn't represent their feelings toward Springville.

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