![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)
In a surprise move at the end of August, the Walt Disney Company announced that it was going to buy one of the largest comic distributors in the world, Marvel Comics. At $4 billion, the company will be sold for full asking price. Because of this, Disney now owns the rights to many superhero favorites, including Spiderman, the X-Men and the Hulk. Besides use of the characters, Disney also acquired the right to deny rival companies use of the Marvel superheroes, a very strategic move on Disney’s part.
This announcement is slightly reminiscent of a previous buy-out announced by Disney where in 2006, they bought out Pixar Animation Studios for a hefty $7.4 billion. Similar to the Pixar acquisition, this will provide Disney with many profitable rights, and while the benefits aren’t reported to be immediate, stock experts predict that Disney will see the profits of the merger to roll in by the 2012 fiscal year.
While this may seem a bit scary for fans of the masked superheroes, Disney has made a promise to keep the original design and direction of characters. Disney Corp. is also keeping Marvel CEO Isaac Perlmutter in charge of Marvel to ensure this happens. So, luckily for fans of the dark heroes like Iron Man and the Hulk, none of these characters will be teaching young children how to spell “cat” anytime soon.
The merger isn’t immediate, as many issues about the full rights of Marvel characters and brands are now coming to the surface. Marvel had previously made a deal with Universal to allow the exclusive use of its characters in Universal theme parks and attractions, leading to the Incredible Hulk Coaster and other rides in Universal Orlando. Disney has announced that they intend to honor these rights, but will also be receiving the profits from the attractions that would have normally gone into Marvel’s pockets.
While Disney has gained the rights to create Marvel attractions now, it has stated that no superhero rides will be built in their Orlando attractions. Instead, Disney CFO Tom Staggs has said that Disney will be looking at building Marvel-themed rides in its other theme parks around the world.
Besides roller coasters, many movie studios also held claim to the use of the Marvel characters before the Disney buy-out. The Sony Corporation owns the rights to the Spiderman franchise, and already has a May 2011 release slated for Spiderman 4. 20th Century Fox also owns movie rights to a large stable of Marvel superheroes, such as the X-Men and Fantastic Four. Since these contracts guarantee rights “in perpetuity”, they will only lose their rights when they stop making movies for their said franchises. Paramount Pictures also has a five-movie contract with Marvel. The first of these will be Iron Man 2, which will be releasing in May of 2010.
Disney has stated that they will honor these studio agreements as well and, at expiration of these licenses, will possibly extend any profitable ones.
Many speculate that the purchase of Marvel was due to Disney’s recent loss at the box offices. While movies like Up! were a moderate success, they had trouble competing with the blockbuster epics like Star Trek and Transformers. Disney itself has stated that they intend to use this merger as a method to re-acquaint themselves with the males of this generation (Disney has already made great investments in appealing to females with princess movies and TV shows). Disney CEO Robert Iger describes the Marvel heroes as “right in the wheelhouse for boys”. Marvel TV shows are already shown on the Disney XD channel intended for young boys. Hopefully with the edgier addition of heroes like Wolverine, it will provide a pleasant alternative to Hannah Montana for many young boys.
While movie-goers may not see Mickey and Spidey teaming up to fight the Green Goblin and Ursula anytime soon, this sudden purchase may yield significant profits for both companies. Stock market experts are already predicting a rise in Disney stock, a healthy change for the company after reporting a significant amount of debt. So until the dust settles and the companies begin working on integrating the two franchises, dreams of Spiderman hanging from the Magic Kingdom castle and the Silver Surfer circling Space Mountain will have to satisfy for now.
