A picture of Middletown High School made by using a collage of student and staff photos.  Sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it?

       MHS principal Jay Berno brought the wonderful idea with him from Tuscarora High School, where he had been ordering a similar picture every year since the school’s opening in 2003.  When Berno found out that Lifetouch, the company that creates these collages, would be taking the school portraits this year, he contacted the sales representative and requested a photograph of MHS. 

       Berno thought the picture was a very unique idea and would be a nice gift to give to the school.

       The picture Berno gave to the school enforces the idea of togetherness; our school is the students, and the students are the school.  Without the students and staff, MHS would be nothing.

       The students and staff in the picture are placed at random.  You cannot see cliques, or who is friends with whom. It just shows people.  And the people are all linked together by the school.  The picture doesn’t single out any particular people in it, either.  Sure, some random people are in there more than once, but there are 4,896 pictures, so there had to be some repeats.  But nobody is more important than the person next to him.  The picture says that staff and students at MHS are all valued equally; and that is part of the reason the picture of the school is truly great.

       Many students rushed over to look at the picture during their lunch shift like Berno had suggested.  But several of the students looked at it only to discover, with disappointment, that their pictures were nowhere to be found.

       One fourth of the student population cannot be found in the 4,896 pictures that make up the grand picture.  The senior class portraits were not used in the creation of the image of MHS.

       So why were the seniors not in it?  When Lifetouch created the picture, it used a CD that was created the day underclassmen had their portraits taken.  Since seniors did not get their pictures taken that day, they were not in the CD.  Only one CD was used, so only the pictures on that CD got put into the picture.

       MHS students should not look at the negative aspects of the photograph; they should look at the positive.  Berno thought that it would be a nice addition to bring with him to MHS.  The picture’s meaning, and the message it is intended to say, are far more important than the actual picture itself.