“Good morning Imagine Prep, and welcome to the Storm morning announcements!” This is something we hear every morning right after the bell for first hour rings.

Imagine Prep has students who are on our school’s announcements and talk about helpful and interesting topics.

Benjamin Andree, media instructor and social media coordinator, is the mentor of morning announcements and has been for a couple of years but Megan Werner, high school teacher, was in charge of it before.

“I don’t remember when I took over mentoring the morning announcements, the years seem to blend together,” Andree said. “It had to have been three to four years ago now.  Before I took over, Ms. Werner was in charge of the morning announcements.”

How long has this been going on you ask? The morning announcements have been going on for six or seven years now.

“Students have been doing the morning announcements since I started here in the 2012-2013 school year,” Andree said.

The morning announcements come to be when Andree sends out a form for teachers to fill out. Then, he uses that information and puts it in a script for the announcers.

“I have a Google Form that the teachers enter items for the announcements,” Andree said. “Each morning, I take the information on that form and write a script for the announcers to read.  I am also the chair of the Communication Task Force and we make decisions on what is included in the announcements, like two to three years ago when we decided to remove the lunch menu from the announcements and add the info from the National Day Calendar instead.”

Andree has said that he opens up tryouts for students at the beginning of each year of school and says that anyone can try out.

Andree rotates students and says who is on the announcements team.

“I have an eight person rotation.  The team consists of sophomore Jake Simpson, eighth grader Angela Bravo, senior Annabelle Daigle, sixth grader Taylor Schonert, junior Aubre Stark, sixth grader Tayden Butler, sophomore Ryley Youngs, and seventh grader Haley Cowan,” Andree said.

When Andree was taking over it happened to only be upperclassmen on the announcements but adjusted it to allow all grades to try out. And they announce the announcements in Coach Sachau’s office.

“When I first took over, it was only juniors and seniors who performed the announcements.  I opened it up to all grade levels because of the lack of interest from the upperclassmen one school year,” Andree said. “Since then, we have had numerous middle schoolers on the announcement team.  The announcements used to be read from the nurse’s office in the front office, but because of the congestion up there in the morning, we moved it to Mr. Sachau’s office.”

If you plan to be a commentator or host in the future, this would be perfect for you. Or this could be just a fun experience, but don’t be afraid to try new things. And like the announcers say, “have a Stormtastic day Imagine Prep.”