PORTALES, N.M. — Best Smile, Most Likely to Succeed and… Most Likely to Skinny Dip?
A category in a New Mexico high school yearbook is raising some eyebrows, but it’s the photos that go along with it that is really stirring up controversy in Portales, according to KRQE.
Students picked up the 2014 issue of the Portales High School yearbook last week and in the area where senior superlatives were given out are two photos that appear to show naked students to go with the category Most Likely to Skinny Dip.
"They were trying to be humorous to a certain extent and it didn't go over well with a certain fraction who saw the yearbook," said Assistant Principal Garrick Matthews.
School administrators said they have received numerous complaints about the photo.
Officials say the yearbook staff of about 20 students got the idea off the Internet and then picked the winners.
The yearbook staff and a teacher were the only ones who saw it before it was published.
“The intent behind it was never to paint the students in a negative light or paint the school in a negative light,” Matthews said. "I can't change it, but I can tell people were gonna try that those sort of things don't happen in the future."
Unfortunately, to some students and parents, it did.
“I just feel like I wouldn’t want my parents to see that,” said senior Isabel Abraca.
But others like Matthew Sanchez, a senior at the school, did not have a problem with the photo.
"It was kind of funny, but it doesn't offend me," he said.
Cristian Gonzales, another student, said that if people don't like it, they shouldn't look at it.
School officials, who revealed that the two students in the photos did have clothes on when the pictures were taken, would not say whether anyone will be punished.
However, the district did say another set of eyes will be viewing the yearbook before it’s published.
