![After placing second in their respective LDEs at the Capital District contest in early November, freshman Jesus Jaramillo-Gallegos and freshman Wyatt Pickett will compete at the Area XII LDE contest in Georgetown on Nov. 23. Jaramillo-Gallegos is competing in Greenhand Spanish Creed Speaking, while Pickett’s LDE is Greenhand Creed Speaking. “Honestly, [I’m excited for] just traveling around, maybe meeting more people,” Jaramillo-Gallegos said. “And [I’m] nervous about probably just not being able to define my weak areas. I feel like I did decent for my first time ever doing this. I just think it’s fun.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Navy-and-Yellow-Simple-Group-Project-Presentation-1200x675.png)
![Holding up T-wolves, the tour group poses for a picture in the Chinese classroom. Sophomore Lydia Ou, junior Phu Trung and senior Yushan Pan gave a tour to Taiwanese diplomat Andrea Yang on Nov. 8. “I was so excited when I heard I would get to give the tour because it’s a big deal,” Ou said. “She’s from the US embassy for Taiwan, so she’s really important. I’m so privileged [to get this opportunity] and I’m so excited.” Photo by Skyler King](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Main-Taiwan.jpg)
![Sitting at a desk past the rows of books laid out for the Book Fair, senior Kimberley Walters assists people in purchasing books and finding titles. The Book Fair is taking place Dec. 16 through Dec. 20, and is an annual event during which students and faculty have the opportunity to go and purchase books and other trinkets in the library. Kimberley said she encourages all to go to the Book Fair, even if they think they don’t like to read. “If you make reading something that is fun for you and you find the things that you like to read, it will never be a chore,” Walters said. “So [the Book Fair is] a good opportunity to find something that will respark your want to read [like] when you were a child and you went to the book fair and you loved the ‘I survived’ books. Maybe you'll find your ‘I survived’ books of your high school experience, and it'll re-spark that kind of love for reading that may have died out.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Addie-L-47-1200x800.jpg)
![Smiling at the camera, sophomore Olivia Mahlmeister and seniors Samantha Jameson, Adhit Eswaramoorthi and Justin Khadavi celebrate completing first chamber in the Congress Meet. All four students advanced to the final chamber. “Out of the 20 kids in the final chamber, we had a seventh, ninth, 11th and 13th, and they took the top four to move on to state,” AP US History and Debate teacher Josh Marsh said. “[Even though] we didn't make state this year, all four of them moving on [and] placing is phenomenal.” Photo courtesy of Josh Marsh](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2024-Regional-Congress-Team.jpg)
![Standing in front of a small audience, senior Kimberley Walters shares a social criticism poem titled “Pity the Nation” by Lawrence Felinghetti. Every month, sponsored by the poetry club, the library hosts a poetry reading. “I never thought I would be interested in [poetry readings] because I’m not the biggest poetry fan,” Walters said. “I think poetry is a very succinct way to express feelings and get a story across. Whereas lots of books have a span of a whole story, but it’s put in a lot of words. The power of poetry is that you can be so succinct within, and there’s a lot of power within the words that are used.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KIM-1200x800.jpg)
![Smiling at the camera, Author Ehigbor Okosun, members of Page Turners, and other students reflect on the author's visit. “I thought the visit was great,” Senior Amia De Leon said. “It was interesting talking to her and [getting to know] her process and her thoughts and books in general. But I think the reason it went well [was that] people got to ask questions. I'm glad that she said so much in response to the questions and it wasn't just one and done. [The author’s responses] felt very articulate.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Sebastian-5-1200x800.jpg)
![Holding the Grand Nationals trophies, drum majors Helashi Wijayawardhana, Abigail Pettey and Eddy Kim pose for a photo. The BOA Grand Nationals competition took place in Indianapolis on Nov. 14-17. “My favorite thing was just looking back at the field, and I was like, ‘Oh, crap. I know all of their names, I know who all of them are’,” Wijayawardahana said. “It's just insane to me that I was able to make so many connections. [Being a drum major] taught me how to build relationships with people who I’m not really that similar to, and how to juggle a ton of things all together.”
Photo courtesy of CPHS Band SmugMug](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/AJC.GrandNatsFinals-169-1200x801.jpg)
![Delicately placing the string to form the shape of a cornucopia, seniors Haley Burton and Avery Nelson create the November arrangement for the Flower of the Month Club. This club is led by Advanced Floral Design Students and provides a monthly arrangement to community members who subscribe to receive them. “I think flower of the month club is a really impactful way to show your loved ones ‘hey I really care about you,’ or even if they’re just for yourself, they’re a little pick-me-up throughout the month that [say] ‘I’m doing ok, and these flowers make my day a little bit brighter,” Nelson said. “I like giving people flowers because people value the flowers more and they value themselves more.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Ava-Holmes-3-edit.jpg)
![Standing in front of the field at a freshman football game, cheerleader freshman Jacob Gaudreau along with teammate freshman Bella Gibson pose for a photo during halftime of game. “[Cheer has] definitely given me a much more outgoing personality,” Gaudreau said. “I used to be very introverted, so it's definitely made me more extroverted towards people.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Ingrid-204-1200x800.jpg)
![Holding a wooden pizza toy, senior Taylor Peterson plays with small children in Bucaramanga, Colombia. During the summer, Peterson traveled to Colombia to help build an elementary school that only had two classrooms but five or six grades with one teacher. “We add[ed] two more classrooms,” Peterson said. “It’s kind of hard when you have two or three grades in one classroom and you only have one teacher. It’s very hard to actually get some beneficial learning. [The extra classrooms will give the students] a better quality of education because they’ll actually have a place specific for their learning.” Photo by Taylor Peterson](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Taylor-P.png)
![Sucking in a breath of air, freshman Lily Pope competes in the 200 yard individual medley. On Oct. 25, the swim team competed in the AISD Swim Invitational. Overall, the girls team took second place and the boys team came in eleventh. “My favorite stroke is butterfly because I do the best in that stroke,” Pope said. “I feel like [butterfly] can test how [your ability] to convince yourself to keep going. The hardest part of swimming is convincing yourself to stay strong and keep pushing during a hard race [when] everything is tired.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/POPE-1200x804.jpg)
![Swinging with his arm extended, senior Nolan Park hits the ball smoothly over the net and to the opponent’s side. Park is one of four varsity tennis captains and helped the team win district championships. “Winning district champs was a pretty awesome feeling,” Park said. “We had lost to Liberty Hill a couple of weeks before, but when we played them [again], we came out and really took care of business. We took them out and it was just a really awesome night.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Kassidy-419.jpg)
![Pictured above is the crafting club social media page that junior Makena Filippoff and sophomore James Morris-Hodges created. The crafting club was created to allow students to have an opportunity to learn how to create different kinds of crafts and to collaborate with other students interested in crafting. “I love to do crafts but I find myself feeling lonely when doing crafts,” Filippoff said. “With no one to share my ideas or experiences with, it can get boring. I wanted to get a group of people that have an interest in learning [and] doing crafts to be able to have fun and socialize while crafting.”
Photo used with permission from Makena Filippoff](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/craftingclubedit.jpg)
The sound of scissors snipping, the whir of the sewing machine and the chatter of students excitedly sharing their ideas can be heard from room 4005. New creations that range from racing suits to crochet baby blankets are being brought to life in this room. Every Monday, the former sewing club, now revamped crafting club meets to work on self-guided independent projects in the presence of other students that share an interest in crafting.
The crafting club was created for creative, hands-on students by junior Makena Filippoff and sophomore James Morris-Hodges. The club was created to provide different opportunities for students to learn how to craft and sew.
“I love to do crafts but I find myself feeling lonely when doing crafts,” Filippoff said. “With no one to share my ideas or experiences with, it can get boring. I wanted to get a group of people that have an interest in learning [and] doing crafts to be able to have fun and socialize while crafting.”
For Morris-Hodges, the creation of this club was a place to launch his ideas and designs for his future aspirations.
“I wanted to create the crafting club [because] I wanted to make something to help me in my hopefully-future job as a NASCAR driver,” Morris-Hodges said. “I wanted to start the crafting club last year but never got the chance. One day I got an email [from] Mrs. Stribling saying [that] she would be happy to sponsor my club. I said I was still interested and here we are.”
The crafting club provides a variety of supplies and tools needed to help students work on their independent projects.
“We have a bunch of different fabrics, zippers, fabric scissors and elastic,” Morris-Hodges said. “People who come to our club just work on different things. Last meeting people were working on origami, but it’s mostly just random [projects].”
The crafting club meets every Monday during DEN in room 4005. According to Filippoff, getting students involved meant having to spread the word around and find ways to engage with others.
“I am in the band and knew about crafty people so it was easy to ask them to join even with our busy schedule,” Filippoff said. “The second way was Instagram. We were able to create an account to spread word and had all the information to join on there. We were also able to do fun themed craft days that anyone could join.”
Since the club allows members to work on whatever projects they want to pursue, a variety of projects are being worked on. Morris-Hodges is currently working on a NASCAR suit during these meetings. He said the planning process and work put into the suit are well thought-out.
“Right now I am working on a design for a NASCAR suit [and] when I’m done with that I’ll start actually cutting out the fabric and putting it together,” Morris-Hodges said. “I feel like it will take around a month or more to make the suit. I’m probably going to have to use regular fabric to make it a bit baggy, and I’m going to [use] a zipper and velcro and stitch it all up.”
According to Filippoff, the crafting club is a great way to socialize and share ideas with other students interested in crafting.
“My favorite part about this club is the people,” Filippoff said. “They always have something to teach or to talk about, whether it’s a new project or a creation gone wrong. You can always get an idea when talking with others and enjoy your craft at the same time.”
One of the club’s plans is to wear what the students create in this club for their club pictures. Future plans are still being developed, but hopes are high for the club, according to Filippoff.
“One thing I want to see in the future of the club is more group projects,” Filippoff said. “Something we can all work on together and show off, or maybe an event to show off our creations.”
