Hover States, Bring to Front

I'm trying to cut down on slide layers and triggers.  Right now, I have a text box that is visible when a picture is in hover state and it is hidden when the picture is not in hover state (I do this by making a hover state, making a slide layer, making a trigger to show the layer, and making another trigger to hide the layer).  The obvious solution here is to just put the text box right into the hover state to cut the triggers and layer.  This is a great solution except I can't figure out how to get my text box to always be at the front of the slide.  The text box is in the same plane as the photo so when there is another photo next to it, my text box is hidden.  Unfortunately, the photo next to it ALSO has a text box that needs to be visible when it is in a hover state so if I bring one photo to the front, the other photo's text box will be covered when in the hover state.  I've tried editing the hover state and bringing the text box and then both the photo and the text box to the front when hovered, but it does not change them with respect to the other pictures on the slide.

My solution right now is what I described at first by adding layers and triggers.  Another thought would be to have some of the photos brought to the front and then whatever photos whose text boxes are covered in the hover state I will use the slide layers and extra triggers.  I don't care that it is all more complicated on my part; what I care about is that this is a massive course I'm building and I'm trying to simplify it every way possible so it runs smoother.  There are 2-300 instances of this in this single course so yes, I do really think that solving this will make a difference.

If there's a way to get a text box within a hover state to jump to the front of the slide, I would love to hear about it.  Thanks!