![Walking through the tunnel created by the cheerleaders and Celebrities, senior Frances Tran smiles as the soccer team is sent off during DEN for their playoff game against Rouse tonight. Tran said the wins against Smithson Valley and Alamo Heights gave the team a morale boost to take on the Raiders tonight. “I know we were not 100% confident in those games,” Tran said. “But, Rouse is a big opponent for sure. We’re definitely going into tonight with a lot of morale [because of the previous wins].”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/frances-tran.jpg)
![Holding a bucket of materials in one hand and a roll of tape in another, anatomy and biology teacher Tyler Terry prepares for a lab. Terry said his proudest moments are when his students are happy to see him. “When I take my wife to a football game or something and a bunch of students want to say hi to me or they like to smile and wave and it just makes me feel good that the students are really kind and supportive of me,” Terry said. “[I’m also] proud when I see students perform really well in their extracurriculars because I can see how hard they’re working in my classes, [so] when I see that they’re also working so hard in other things. Like they’re winning band competitions or they’re getting awards for their theater productions, or I see them put on their choir shows, that’s like, wow, you guys are incredible.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Rags-6.png)
![Catching a ball, junior Alivia Robinson plays at the Cedar Park vs Glenn game. Having played since she was 5 years old, she is dedicated to softball and has committed to UTPB for softball. “When I got my offer it took me a very long time to decide where,” Robinson said. “Softball has always been my dream for college, and UTPB is my fit. When [I committed] I knew I was going to be loved and supported.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Lilly-Adams-3.13aliviaedit-901.jpg)
Hoppe wins $10,000 Scholarship at Skillathon
At the County stock show in January, junior Charlie Hoppe directs his pig. The competition requires the competitors to look at the judges while keeping control of the pigs. “It can sometimes be really difficult to control the pigs,” Hoppe said. “Knowing where exactly to go, all at the same time keeping an eye on the judges and your surroundings, really makes you be on top of your toes.”
March 25, 2015
The Swine Skillathon is a pig competition where junior Charlie Hoppe won a $10,000 scholarship on Feb. 11-13. This competition helps expand the swine industry to students that are in FFA or interested in this specific industry. Students from high schools can compete for the winning scholarship of $10,000, after passing the requirements of the competition. Hoppe has participated in the competition before, but this was his first win.
“I did the competition last year so I knew from participating in the first time, that I wanted to do it again and try to get that scholarship,” Hoppe said. “I suspected that I was going to do it again during the school year, and so I started preparing for it and signed up in November, so from mid-December to early February I studied and spent the bulk of my time for training for it.”
Hoppe didn’t prepare alone, FFA sponsor and agriculture teacher Jack Winterrowd helped Hoppe learn the necessary information for the competition. The assessment covers skeletal parts, cuts of meat and tools of the trade. Hoppe tried several different methods of preparation for the competition.
“After they posted all the study material online I printed it out and looked over it whenever I got the chance,” Hoppe said. “Then I practiced for about three months preparing for the hard part of the competition, the essay requirement. There was also a speech at the end, if you made it to the finals; so I went over current topics and prepared what my speech could potentially be over, it took a while to get the right topic.”
The $10,000 scholarship really motivated Hoppe to enter the competition again, especially after not winning last year’s competition.
“We were there anyway showing purebred gilts and so it was just another opportunity to compete,” Hoppe said. “I always had been interested in the swine industry and I wanted to do things with pigs and learn about them, so the competition got my attention; I felt like I could do well in it this year and winning one of those scholarships was my major incentive for doing it.”
![Holding her dog, Nova, senior Ariana Balakrishnan poses for her senior pictures while Nova wears a bandana with her college decision. Balakrishnan applied to 18 colleges in total, but she decided on Columbia in the end. “Right before I clicked the button to open Columbia’s letter, I literally looked at the camera and go ‘This is just gonna really suck because I wanted it so bad,’ and I clicked it and all of a sudden you hear trumpets,” Balakrishnan said. “There’s a video that plays when you open it and I actually didn’t watch the video, I just watched the screen go black, because every day of December before ED [Early Decision] I would go on YouTube and watch the acceptance video to manifest it, so immediately when the screen went black, I started screaming and jumping up and down. And my parents in the video are like ‘What are you doing, where’s the letter,’ and I was just screaming ‘I got in, I got in.” I just started crying, and it just felt like everything in the world came together.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/ariana-2-300x217.jpg)
![Catching a ball, junior Alivia Robinson plays at the Cedar Park vs Glenn game. Having played since she was 5 years old, she is dedicated to softball and has committed to UTPB for softball. “When I got my offer it took me a very long time to decide where,” Robinson said. “Softball has always been my dream for college, and UTPB is my fit. When [I committed] I knew I was going to be loved and supported.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Lilly-Adams-3.13aliviaedit-901-600x400.jpg)
