--- title: Schenectady High School Senior Petitions for Cat Picture in Yearbook description: If this isn't a worthy cause, we don't know what is canonical: https://time.com/3327621/cat-schenectady-high-school-yearbook/ author: Samantha Grossman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-09-11T18:07:36.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:48:27.270Z og:title: High School Senior Starts Petition to Get Awesome Portrait With His Cat Into the Yearbook og:description: Seems like a totally reasonable and attainable dream og:url: https://time.com/3327621/cat-schenectady-high-school-yearbook/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: High School Senior Starts Petition to Get Awesome Portrait With His Cat Into the Yearbook twitter:description: Seems like a totally reasonable and attainable dream twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Hero Starts a Petition to Get His Cat Into the High School Yearbook by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Sep 11, 2014 6:07 PM UTC by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Sep 11, 2014 6:07 PM UTC Draven Rodriguez is just a normal high school kid in upstate New York hoping to make his dreams come true. In this case, those dreams involve getting the administration at Schenectady High School to agree to use the following photo as his senior portrait:  Vincent Giordano / Trinacria Photography The school has said the photo can be included in the yearbook somewhere, but not as Rodriguez’s official senior portrait, a local CBS affiliate [reports](http://www.cbs6albany.com/news/features/top-story/stories/schenectady-student-petitions-have-cattastic-photo-yearbook-19228.shtml?wap=0). So Rodriguez has started [a petition](http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/get-my-photo-into-the-yearbook) as a “pre-emptive strike.” He hopes to gain enough backers so that the school simply _can’t_ deny this request. His goal was to reach 500 signatures by Sept. 15, and by the morning of Sep. 11, he’d already hit 721. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3327621/cat-schenectady-high-school-yearbook/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3327621/cat-schenectady-high-school-yearbook/"},"headline":"Hero Starts a Petition to Get His Cat Into the High School Yearbook","datePublished":"2014-09-11T18:07:36.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:48:27.270Z","description":"Seems like a totally reasonable and attainable dream","url":"https://time.com/3327621/cat-schenectady-high-school-yearbook/","keywords":["Newsfeed","animals","cats","Appreciation","Funny"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Samantha Grossman","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3327621/cat-schenectady-high-school-yearbook/","name":"Hero Starts a Petition to Get His Cat Into the High School Yearbook"}}]}] ```