Here is a sneak peek of some student work for the 2026 Echo, “Twelve Minutes to Midnight.” We can’t wait for you to see the final results!

“Twelve Minutes to Midnight”

The phrase “Twelve Minutes to Midnight” will call different images to mind for different people. Twelve minutes until a birthday? Twelve minutes until a brand new day? Twelve minutes until the bombs drop and nuclear fallout consumes our entire world, leaving us in an eternal nuclear winter with no hope of continuing the human species?

The phrase “Twelve Minutes to Midnight” is inspired by the Doomsday Clock from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a program that intends to spread awareness of how close we are to destroying our world with man-made technology. It’s a grim reminder of the metaphorical black hole that threatens to swallow us whole if we continue on the path humanity lies on right now. But the concept isn’t necessarily all doom and gloom. Those twelve minutes could be spent in anticipation, or excitement, or any other myriad emotions that come before an especially notable day. This theme aims to explore the catastrophe that we may feel lies in wait, but also the quiet moments that we have beforehand. Whether that’s spent on a rooftop moongazing thoughtfully or fending off killer robots for the fate of earth is up to the artist.

-Carson Mayeske and Jaxon Hewitt-Zmich, Editors-in-Chief