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After our first deadline of 32 pages of color, it was time to elect officials and positions for the class. The class is kind of like a publishing company and in that company you need positions for everyone who works there. On that note, a ballot was put out for people to vote on what position they wanted in the class. There were many positions to choose from and each person had to pick three positions that they would want to fill. Once we decided what positions we would like to have, we turned them in to Ms. Lord so that she could deliberate on who was best for what position.

After Ms. Lord took everyone's ballot and thought about it, she chose the people best for the positions. They were as follows:

Sharmin Hossain & Sandora Ruiz- Co-Editors of the Yearbook
Sana Islam- Editor of Senior Life
Ariana Garcia- Editor of Sports
Stephany Betances- Editor of Senior Portraits
Darrell Salina- Editor of Clubs
Breana Johnson- Copy Editor
Talha Islam- Photographer
Rosemary Parades- Photographer
Danuary Lorenzo & Lizmary Almanzar- Graphic Designers

Everyone else is the class were staff members and had to work with the section editors on perfecting those sections. From then we worked on our next deadline of 56 pages which would be in black and white. Everyone now had their own jobs, but it was official, because we had bosses this time, so to speak. I ended up working with Sana on Senior Life. She is a pretty cool boss/section editor.

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Community News

Once we learned how to create layouts, we learned some yearbook terminology. That included vocabulary that only us on the yearbook staff would understand. Once we got familiar with that, we were tested on it. The tests were there, like any other test, to prove our knowledge of what we had learned and how well we understood it. After the testing was over, it was time for our first deadline.

In the Yearbook class, we have deadlines. The deadlines are there to help us keep track of our work and make sure that we get our book on time. If we miss deadlines, our book release date would be pushed back and we would have to spend more money. To avoid that situation, we make sure that we are always ahead of our deadlines so that everything can go right on schedule.

Well, our first deadline was 32 pages of color. This would be the only color that would appear in the book. This was exciting because we all loved colored pictures and it gave us the opportunity to play around with different things. Everybody was placed into groups to work on different parts and pages of the book that would be in color. There were about five groups working on those different pages. There was a variety of things to be done, in terms of the pages. After all of the work done, we made our deadline and our 32 pages of color were finished.

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Community News

After the Montage Staff finally came to an agreement on the theme of the book, we had to put it together to make a consistent book. We had to decide how we were going to carry out our theme of Seasons of Change and still have the book be different and creative than all of the other books from previous years. As we brainstormed on ideas to carry out the theme, we were learning techniques that we would need later on in the process of making the book. At the time when we started, everyone was on the same level, meaning, there were no positions yet. Everyone learned the same things and we later got tested on the things that we learned. We learned things such as designing layouts and cropping pictures. Those were the basic things, but the most important things that we needed to know. With that knowledge, the Montage Staff of 07 was ready to make the greatest yearbook in Bergtraum history.

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Community News

The staff picked Seasons as the theme for the yearbook. It was a mutual agreement between everyone so there was no room for complaints. The only concern, however, was that Seasons could become too girly and would not work well with the male students in the school. With that in mind, we had to come up with something that could work for both females and males. With that in mind, we decided that seasons could represent so many more things just the literal of seasons, which is Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall. We decided to choose the idea of Seasons of Change. Seasons bring changes in the weather and everyday life, so we decided to go with the idea of change, instead of just regular seasons.

So the yearbook will be based around the idea of changes. Within life, high school, and in general. The theme will be carried throughout the whole book. We moved away from the very "girly" ideas and came up with something that boys will enjoy as well and not be offended by. From then, we came up with our real theme, Season of Change. So, the 2007 yearbook will be about Seasons of Change. It will still involve the seasons of nature, but it will have a deeper meaning then what is on the surface.

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Community News

The 2007 Montage Staff started working on the yearbook at the beginning of senior year in the Fall 2006 semester. We began deciding on what theme we wanted the book to have by coming up with ideas and then debating on them. There were many ideas that were brought up. They included The Phoenix, Diversity, Flashback, and Seasons. The way the theme was decided was having people who supported the various themes, break up in groups, and come up with an overall design for the whole book. That included designs and ideas for the cover, end sheets, and different sections.

Each group broke up into different groups and collaborated on ideas on how to make their theme work and to also have a creative and different yearbook from the other years. After each group came up with their own unique ideas and plans for the book, there were presentations of the ideas. Each group had to present their ideas to the whole class and to Ms. Lord. The class and Ms. Lord gave feedback on what they thought of the presentation. They expressed their views on whether they liked the theme or not and if they thought it would work. During the presentations, there were hard times and frustrations on deciding what theme should be chosen for the 2007 yearbook. After all of the presentations were completed and everyone had the time to debate on the themes, the class had to vote. The ending decision was Seasons. The class voted that they wanted the theme of the 2007 yearbook to be Seasons.

From then on, the Montage Staff 2007 has been working on a book based around the theme of Seasons.

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About My Community- Montage Staff 07

Hello all. I am going to talk about one of my in-school communities, and that is the Montage Staff of 2007. The Montage Staff is the yearbook committee in Murry Bergtraum High School. It consists of a group of about 19 seniors that have decided to be a special part of their senior year in high school and create their high school yearbook. Each person has their own job and duties that he or she is responsible for. We all put our own special input into helping the book come together. Separately, we do our own "thing", but we then come together to make a special yearbook.

The yearbook is a very important thing to the students on the staff. We put in a lot of time, dedication, and effort to make the yearbook a success. Without each of these, the yearbook would not be possible. Our advisor is Ms. C. Lord. She puts a lot of time, dedication, and effort into helping make the book possible as well. She watches over us to make sure that we are doing everything correctly so that there are no errors in our final product.

We learn many different techniques that only people on the staff know. Many students think that yearbook is not a real class, but it is. We get graded on the work that we do, based on how efficient it is and how creative it is because the book cannot be just anything. It has to be the best book ever made, and that is what we are trying to accomplish. We want to make the best yearbook that Murry Bergtraum has ever seen. So far, we are getting there.