Junior Anders Cote is working on a book to inform the public on the history of our school, called the Fairview History Project. He says that since he has been here a long time, he feels connected to the school, and was inspired to write about it.

For right now, Cote’s plan is for the book to be published because he believes it’s more substantial than a website, which Cote was originally planning on creating, and is hoping that becoming a published author will help boost his college application.

However, he primarily wants to create the book because he is passionate about history and believes the students should become more aware about their community.

The book will be mostly narration, and will include the architecture of the building, the culture and atmosphere, the academic classes and the classes that have come and go over time as the culture of Fairview and of Boulder has changed. He also plans to include major sporting and other events that have occurred throughout our history.

Some examples of this are photos of remodels, old Royal Banners, and basic layouts of the building and even the Viele Lake area. Along these photos Cote has details about them, such as dates and interesting anecdotes regarding the history.  

Cote has been getting his information over the past few months from several sources.

“I post things on Facebook, so people have gotten in contact with me that way, former alumni, former teachers, even counselors. I have been interviewing some people too, teachers here who have been here for a long time or went here as kids,” said Cote. “People have also given me old materials, like the Royal Banner used to be a physical newspaper that would come out weekly, and so they gave me big stacks of those. I also recently got a handbook from the 70’s with rules and regulations, and also a map, too, to see how different things change over time.”

High School can find many students in over their heads with work, and have to try to balance their schedule to try and find time to do everything. However, Cote decided to take on this project all by himself.

“So one thing I think people don’t really understand and I want to get out there more is that this isn’t for a class,” said Cote. “This is my own thing, on my own time, all by myself … which I have to balance with school, track, cross country, and choir and other things outside of school too.”

Many students have found out about the project through Cote’s social media accounts  dedicated to updating the followers about the project on there.

“Over the summer, I was brainstorming and coming up with the idea, I didn’t really do that much because of access, I couldn’t go into the building because of all the construction, so I decided kind of early in the school year to first create stuff on Facebook, and then later in the year I realized that younger people don’t use Facebook as much as they do Instagram.”

Hopefully, the social media accounts will spark interest in the project and will inspire viewers to continue following Cote in his project until it’s eventually finished.

“I find that a lot people don’t know anything outside of their own time being there,” said Cote. There are so many rumors, and mysteries and untold things that have to do with the school that I want to… confirm myths, and just get people to know how this place has changed over time in Fairview’s culture, how everything’s changed around.”