The BYA ~ BYH Alumni Directory in this website consists of rosters for 105 classes of Brigham Young Academy High School and Brigham Young University High School, plus faculty and staff and several other categories.

Because of research in BYU Special Collections, the BYU Family History Library, in original Brigham Young Academy and BYH/BYU records, approximately 95 class rosters will be added by the end of January 2008.

For a review of the latest status of class research, visit this page.

Potential research sources include May and June Utah newspapers during those years, class graduation programs, class photographs with name identifications, student newspapers, and yearbooks.

It is evident from public newspapers during those years that, when the number of high-school-level graduates became quite large (75 to 175 annually), the school and the reporters stopped printing lists of high school graduates in news reports of commencement exercises, and instead focused on the relative handful of BYA students who received collegiate-level diplomas.

And oddly enough, newspapers sometimes recorded the number of pencils used, the number of sheets of paper, and the little gifts given by students to teachers, but not the names of the high-school-level graduates!

It is the purpose of this Alumni Directory to redress this historical blind spot, and reconstruct the missing high school senior class lists.

Fortunately, Special Collections maintains a massive collection of Brigham Young Academy daily student work records, but unfortunately these records may not always include notations about which of the students graduated!

BYH students printed their first yearbook in 1911, but did not begin their first serial Wildcat yearbook until 1933. Currently all known BYH yearbooks have been "extracted" into the Directory.

From 1909 to the late 1920s, the BYU Banyan yearbooks included many pages dedicated to BYH students. While this is wonderful, the photos and lists are often incomplete, as we discover when we are able to compare them to an actual graduation program.

The most reliable source of information is a high school graduation program, but even these lists do not include students who qualified for graduation within the final month before Commencement Exercises, or who received diplomas after summer make-up work.

For example, in 1931 the Evening Herald, Provo, Utah, published a list of BYH students that had qualified for graduation by Tuesday, May 26, 1931. They listed 25 students, stating "...following are a list of graduates who have so far been passed on, several more are now being considered...". Graduation took place on Thursday, May 28, 1931, and we still do not have the final graduation list.

Please look through your family records, local libraries, old photographs, etc., to find any list of BYH seniors/graduates that you may have. Please send any additional information discovered to: Larry Christensen at LHChristen@aol.com

The Provo City Library at Academy Square is creating a special collection of Brigham Young High School annual yearbooks, including BYU Banyan yearbooks with BYH sections (1909 to 1931).

It appears that the first BYU Banyan yearbook was published in 1909. It had a high school section, but only photos, no names. From that time through 1931, several pages in each BYU yearbook were devoted to BY High, and many of these included both photos and names. In 1932, no BYH pages are found in the BYU Banyan yearbook, and no BYH yearbook was published.

BY High students published their first yearbook in 1911, but did not do so again until 1933. From 1933 to 1968, BY High published its traditional Wildcat yearbook. [The rarest is the 1936 Wildcat yearbook -- no known copy exists in any archives.]

If you have historic BYU Banyans and/or Brigham Young High School yearbooks in your family, and you are interested in preserving them, please consider donating them to the BYH collection at the Provo City Library at Academy Square. Contact:

Special Collections
Provo City Library at Academy Square
550 North University Ave.
Provo, UT 84601

801-852-6668

Attn: Steven M. Law
Special Collections Librarian

Email: steven_law@provo.lib.ut.us

Note: The goal of the Provo City Library collection of BYH yearbooks is to preserve no more than two volumes for each year. They already have some volumes from 1956 to 1968, so their main focus is on collecting yearbooks for years earlier than 1956. Please call 801-852-6668 before sending your books to make sure they are needed in the latest collection plan.

BYU Special Collections is accepting donations of other types of historic BYH memorabilia: student newspapers, literary magazines, programs, uniforms, buttons, etc., please carefully organize your collection, write a one-paragraph explanation of the significance of each item or group of items [for "provenance"], then contact the BYU Archives:
J. Gordon Daines III
University Archivist
Brigham Young University
1130 HBLL
Provo, UT 84602
Gordon_Daines@byu.edu
(801) 422-5821