Tucked away on the second floor of the Henry M. Seymour Library in Indianola, inside a carefully climate-controlled room, shelves of school yearbooks quietly tell the story of generations past. These books — some pristine, others worn by time — are part of an ongoing effort to preserve the educational and personal history of Indianola and surrounding Delta communities.
Leading that effort is library historian Richard Pollard, who is working to fill gaps in the library’s yearbook collection, particularly for Indianola High School, Gentry and Indianola Academy. While the library holds many volumes, several years are still missing, and Pollard is asking community members to help.
“We’re not asking people to give up their yearbooks if they want to keep them,” Pollard said. “If someone is willing to let us make a digital copy, we can preserve the record and return the original.”
The collection already includes yearbooks from schools across the region, including Drew High School, Ruleville High School, Inverness High School, North Sunflower Academy, Central Delta Academy, and others. The Indianola library serves as the central storage location for these materials because it has the resources to combat humidity and maintain stable conditions year-round.
“That’s really important for preserving paper materials,” Pollard explained. “This room was designed specifically to extend the life of these books.”
The scope of the collection extends beyond high schools. The library also houses yearbooks from Mississippi Delta Community College, including volumes dating back to its earlier days as Sunflower Agricultural High School, along with books from Mississippi State University, University of Mississippi (Ole Miss), and Delta State University.
Some of the oldest items are handled only with gloves, including a fragile 1926 college yearbook donated years ago by a community member. “Almost everything we have here was donated by someone who wanted it preserved and made accessible for the future,” Pollard said.
Beyond historical record-keeping, the yearbooks often create deeply personal moments.
“Last year, a man came in looking for something else and noticed the yearbooks,” Pollard recalled. “He pulled one off the shelf and found a picture of his mother; she had already passed away. He’d never seen that photo before, and he just started crying.”
In another instance, a young man was able to see what his mother looked like as a teenager through her Gentry yearbook, something he never had the chance to experience growing up.
“These are the moments that remind you why this work matters,” Pollard said.
The yearbooks also support genealogical research, helping families determine where relatives lived or went to school during specific periods. That work connects closely with another library project: identifying unlabeled photographs donated to the archives years ago. The library has begun posting those photos on Facebook, asking the public for help naming faces and places.
“We’re hoping that once we fill in more of the Indianola yearbooks, we can start matching people in photos to names in the books,” Pollard said.
Pollard, who has been in his position for nearly two years, has a background in history. He earned his degree from Mississippi College and taught there for six years while completing graduate work. Before returning to academia, he spent 13 years with GameStop, eventually serving as a district manager overseeing stores across Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee.
In 2023, he left that role, returned to graduate research full-time, and soon after stepped into his current position, bringing both organizational experience and a lifelong love of history with him.
Now settled in Indianola, Pollard says the town feels like home.
“I grew up on the banks of the Sunflower River (Coahoma County),” he said. “Living near the bayou here — it just feels right. Indianola has been incredibly welcoming.”
For now, the focus remains on locating missing yearbooks from Indianola schools. Once those gaps are filled, the library hopes to expand the project further into nearby communities.
“If someone has a yearbook from Indianola High School, Gentry or Indianola Academy, and they’re willing to let us scan it, we’d love to hear from them,” Pollard said. “Every book helps complete the story.”
