Not Pictured: Senior Denied Spot In Yearbook

Senior Clay Edwards’ photo won’t be in this year’s Bracken County High School yearbook. He’ll be listed as “not pictured.”

For Edwards it wasn’t missing picture day or a case of the flu that kept him out of his last yearbook and the class of 2009 composite – it was a dog collar and makeup, and his refusal to wear a faux tuxedo pullover, an unwritten school policy, that all of the other senior boys wore.

His mother Karen Edwards, who grew up in Bracken County, Ky., blames her son’s omission from the yearbook on a “country-bumpkin” mentality.

“People gawk at you like you spawning another head,” said Clay of his appearance.
The 17-year-old is what is known as Gothic: black clothes, black nails, black eyeliner, black lipstick.

But the teen, who has had to serve in-school suspensions for being a “distraction,” said he doesn’t dress the way he does to get attention. It’s just who he is.

“I do what I do because this is what I want to be. I don’t care what people think,” said Clay, whose fashion idols include Madonna, Marilyn Manson, Boy George, Cher and Pete Burns.

(The budding fashion designer/artist said that he toned down his normal appearance for his senior pictures. (Jessica Noll/KyPost.com) ) The budding fashion designer/artist said that he toned down his normal appearance for his senior pictures. He said that he was wearing purple eye shadow, blackish-purple lipstick and drawn-on eyelashes, accessorized by a dog collar.

When he showed up for the photo, he said he was told to wash off the makeup, remove the collar and put on the tuxedo wrap.

“To take off the makeup and the color is taking away a part of who I am,” said Clay, who said he was told it was required and expected of him.

(Since 2004, seniors are required to wear a pullover for the senior composite and yearbook photos. (Jessica Noll/KyPost.com) ) According to Jenny Ray, the high school’s principal, the dress code for yearbook was instituted by a vote to wear the currently required outfits by the class of 2004. That dress code has remained.

“It instills a formality – the importance of graduation and the formal event that it is,” Ray said of the senior photo mandate. She said that the senior composite would hang in the school forever and that any student who does not comply with the dress code, isn’t included in the composite or yearbook.

“It’s become a tradition. It’s always been an honor thing.”

It is not; however, part of the published dress code Clay’s mother said.

“It is supposedly policy that seniors wear the drapes, but it is not in writing and they used to have a choice of clothing and photographers in years past,” said Karen.

Clay points out that the dress code in the student handbook says nothing about the faux tux. “(It’s) not set in stone anywhere that you have to wear that thing – that half piece of velvet.”

Clay, who fashions his own clothes, questioned why he would want to be in a faux tuxedo front in a photo forever, if that isn’t who he really is.

He and his mother think to require formal wear is wrong and a breech of his rights, but his principal said it’s not about freedom.

“[It] has nothing to do with a freedom-appropriate right,” Ray said.

In the yearbook or not this year, Clay said he just wants to see change for future students at Bracken County High School.

“I want to see some major changes made,” he said. “I want everyone to have an opinion and to be heard.”

Wow. That sucks for the poor guy.

Bummer. He shouldn't fret, though, it's a high school year book. Not really going to mean much later on.

Good for him for fighting for his right to wear what he wants to ...who wants to be or look like a sheep anyways.

A differing opinion from me. I think he looks pretty retarded and I am fairly sure that he will be embarrassed of that photo 5 years from now. I guess you should learn at an early age that you can't wear black lipstick and a dog collar and expect the world to take you seriously. He doesn't look much different from 5 billion other Mansonite mallgoths that used to add me on MySpace when I still had it, so I just see him as another sheep. A sheep in black clothing.I don't see why he couldn't be adult enough at 17 to see that when you want to get a job sometime in the future that the dog collar and black lipstick will have to go. Sure he's a kid so he can get away with rebelling for the sake of rebelling now, but a few years from now he'll have a choice of either going into the field of customer service where nobody sees you, starving artist(good luck with that) or homeless after being too cool to tone it down for a job. Or maybe he'll grow the hell up and realizing that nobody can tell you how to look in your down time so it won't kill to suck it up and wash your face once in a blue moon.

So I see it as a good life lesson. Welcome to the real world. You'll get chewed up and spit back out, but you gotta learn about it sometime.

Yes, I look pretty "extreme", but if it came between me eating or keeping some piercings, guess which one I'd choose. Mommy can't hold his hand his whole life.

I remember going to a band competition at a school and I noticed there was a goth girl on a senior board.

I remember being the only/first Goth at my school... small town... less than 4000-5000 people... non-24 hours Wal-Mart... needless to say my life was made hell by every other social class. Junior/Senior year people started to care less about social status/clicks/etc. though... and fortunately nothing like this ever occurred.
Granted, if it did I would have struck back and fought the decision with everything I had to make certain it wouldn't happen again.

Shame though, all small towns seem to have the same mentality.
Different & Change are unholy words and anyone who says or is a part of either shall be persecuted in some way, shape or form.

Gods I'm so glad I'm free from that “country-bumpkin” mentality...
And yet, my parents wonder why it takes a year or more for me to visit them at home more than a few hours...


Leave it to small towns to continue hindering the progress of humankind...

That's crap. I think they have no right to be able to do any of that.

Lucky for me I went to an art high school. At my school it was normally to see hippies, scene kids and goth people running around. But it was funny because the rest of the school hated the dancers.