A pet pinup calendar

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. — This year’s Pet Pinup Calendar for the Central Nebraska Humane Society will feature cats and dogs, as expected, but there will also be full-page photos of a donkey and an iguana.

“I really enjoy it,” said Jill Hornady, who is helping with the project.

Hornady is on the Humane Society’s advisory board. For the second year in a row, the organization has partnered with Grand Island Senior High School to produce and sell the calendar.

Last year the school’s DECA group assisted with the marketing and selling of the calendar. This year, the Future Business Leaders of America and a theater group from the high school are assisting as well.

The DECA students plan to enter the project in a national contest, and the theater students are using the calendar as a fundraiser, Hornady said.

“That’s exciting,” she said of the contest.

The students have been able to see the project through from the beginning. They help collect and select the photos, market the calendar, and sell it once it’s printed, she said.

Laurie Dethloff, Humane Society executive director, said the project is a business opportunity for the students. They not only get to see a project from beginning to end, but they also get to see the dollars spent at work in the community, she said.

“With other fundraisers, the product is delivered and they go and get it,” she said. “With this, they learn marketing and sales.”

Approximately 175 photos were submitted this year. That is the most calendar organizers have received, Hornady said.

“Usually we get 120 to 130,” she said.

The first five or six years the calendar was produced, Janie Hoch did most of the work.

“The calendar was her idea,” Hornady said.

The calendar will be printed at Copy Cat and the profits will go to the school and the Humane Society, she said.

Dethloff said sales of the calendars increased last year with the involvement of the high school students.

All of the photos submitted will be printed in the calendar, with 12 of them gracing full pages at the top of each month, Hornady said.

Six of the full-page photos were chosen by the students from photos that students submitted. The remaining six were selected from communitywide submissions.

The community voting took place at Sutter Deli. Voters paid $1 per vote, and those funds will go toward the project, Hornady said.

She believes the calendars have been popular over the last several years, particularly with children and older adults, because they aren’t “slick and commercialized.” The photos have been taken by pet owners.

“It’s really personal for a lot of people,” Hornady said.

Dethloff said some of the animals featured in the calendar were adopted from the Central Nebraska Humane Society, while others were rescued pets from other shelters.

Some of the photos are memorials to animals that have died.

And each year, the submitted pictures get more and more creative, she said.

“We got some great photos this year,” she said.

In addition to the animal photos, a snapshot of the students who help with the calendar will be printed in the calendar. The calendar is heading to the printer soon and will be available for purchase for $15 beginning Dec. 1.