A morning person is a rare type of human, but an energetic crew of middle school students is making mornings a lot more pleasant for their classmates at Bellwood-Antis.
Morning announcements have always been a daily routine at Bellwood-Antis in the high school and middle school alike, and now with an improved media room members from the middle school’s tech-club have begun broadcasting their announcements every morning with the help of Mrs. Kuhn and Major Greaser from tech support.
As with the high school announcements, every person plays a part in the filming process, whether that be reading the script, using the computer, and uploading the video.
For example, middle schoolers Colby Bardell and Cooper McCahan both enjoy the tech aspect of the announcements, and both do well with electronics, so this gives them an opportunity to further explore that at school. They assist with announcements by operating the computer software that records and stores them.
“She (Mrs. Kuhn) wanted us to join tech club and it progressed into running the computer after someone showed me how,” Bardell.
Another example of this is the team of Nora Gerwert and Azla Solomon, who are commonly on screen. Both enjoy reading the script to make sure it sounds good and makes sense to everyone who is going to listen to them.
The crew also includes students like Addie Wagner, Avery Conlon, Jenna Walker, Kira Pennington, Siva Bennet, Samantha Fagan, and Lainey Stinson, who handle jobs like setting up and running the camera, as well as getting in front of the camera to make the announcements.
“I feel like we’re not as shy as other people. Plus, we have experience,” said Wagner, who did morning announcements last year, as well.
However, the most popular response from the middle school announcement crew is that they wanted to be involved. Mrs. Kuhn has become the advisor for tech club and took that as an opportunity to pitch the idea to her students, who were more than willing to help in order to add the missing piece in Bellwood’s morning routine.
Earlier this year, BluePrint staff members took over Bellwood-Antis High School’s morning announcements, using a slightly different approach. While the middle school broadcasts its announcements live, high school students Cayden Pellegrine, Zach Gonzales, Janiyah Jackson, and Rowan Kyle record theirs the day before.
All morning announcement videos are uploaded to the BluePrint’s YouTube channel.
Much of the new and improved look for the announcements can be traced to a revamped video studio that the BluePrint had renovated this year thanks to funds contributed through a BA Foundation grant. The room also received a school some school-spirit branding with new signs created by Mrs. Kyley Longo-McGarvey.
