Last year was tumultuous. It was met with conflict, disaster and tragedy, with hope fleeting at times. It didn’t matter what side of the political, social or economic spectrum anyone was on; whatever someone did, there was a passionate conversation alongside it. Perhaps Oxford Dictionaries phrased it best when they placed “youthquake” as their 2017 word of the year.

But with the start of the school year and the new year, the one thing the yearbook staff knew to anticipate was change.

In years prior, yearbook has been a class, not a club. But last summer, MTHS’ yearbook, TEMPO, unexpectedly joined Hawkeye as part of the Hawk Student Media program due to a lack of students signing up for the class.

Thus, the 2017-2018 school year began as a year of change. Not only did we begin the year with new leadership of the school, but we also had new leadership taking charge of the yearbook.

The book the TEMPO team is putting together reflects this in a change of design, structure and composition. For upperclassmen, these changes might come as a surprise, especially for those who didn’t know TEMPO was under new leadership.

In essence, new leadership means new rules and guidelines for the yearbook we produce. Through collaboration with the Hawkeye, we’re working to make sure the book packs in as many memories as we can from the year.

While it took a few months to get a leadership team in place, we’ve been able to establish one with an executive editor accompanying two design editors, three photography editors and a copy editor who edits all yearbook text. Our staff pulls mostly from Hawkeye, but we’re always open for new staff (if anyone’s interested).

With regards to design, this yearbook has a more modern take; one of the fonts we use is custom (courtesy of junior Madison Balser) and several layouts are influenced by geometric graphics. The cover TEMPO Design Editor Teresa Bonilla created will be revealed in a few weeks across TEMPO social media.

Another point brought to TEMPO attention was concern regarding the senior superlatives chosen. The superlatives this year are no different from superlatives chosen the year before, with the exception of one superlative we did not include. We picked the superlatives this year intending to reflect student character and MTHS ideals, but if there’s a group of students who feel they are not represented, TEMPO will address those accordingly.

The TEMPO team thanks you for your patience while we work hard on making the best yearbook we can amidst the change surrounding us.