![The cross country team poses for the camera after finishing the district meet. The varsity boys, JV boys and JV girls all placed third and the varsity girls placed fourth. “Coach put in the right training for us for this season, so I think we will be peaking this week and the next couple of weeks,” varsity runner and junior Nathan Kukla said. “The chances of making it to state are very high, but we don’t settle for the lowest and there is always going to be that chance, so [we] race for the best.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Heidi-831-1200x900.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)
![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)
![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)
![Standing proud, varsity senior athletes Rafael Escobar, Griffin Jacobs, Jakob Martin, and juniors Jackson Springer and Jack Morris pose with their newly earned medals. The varsity team finished third out of 14 teams on Sept. 25. “The team's primary goal is to win the district championship,” head coach Cody Price said. "We're confident that with our action plan in place, we can accomplish this mission. [For the next tournament], our preparation involves assessing our strengths and weaknesses, celebrating milestones and creating individual development plans." Photo courtesy of Cody Price](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/golf.jpg)
![Smiling at the camera, the Varsity Tennis team celebrates winning districts. They played against Liberty Hill on Tuesday night and won with a final score of 10- 5. “We improved a lot even from the last game,” senior Blake Hillis said. “We lost against them the last time we played [Liberty Hill], but it was really close. It was just really important for us to win this match since it was the district finals. [When we won I felt] overwhelmingly happy, especially being there with my teammates and it being my senior year. It was just really great. It [felt] like a community.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Tennis-Districts-e1728060882260.png)
Cernosek goes to TMEA State
At the homecoming pep rally on Sept. 12, junior Rachel Cernosek plays her flute while wearing her homecoming mum. Cernosek went on to make the TMEA All State band in February.
March 25, 2015
Junior flute player Rachel Cernosek performed at state at the Texas Music Education Association state band competition this past weekend of Feb. 14-15 in San Antonio. She was able to perform with 400 other band contestants and played with the ensemble groups. She has been preparing her pieces since July and all throughout marching season.
TMEA is a music process where students audition for Region, Area and then State. The judges take all the best instrumentalists in the state and put them together in “bands.” It’s known for putting together the best bands in the state and participants get to perform with the most musically talented people in the state. Cernosek was able to play with the “bands” and felt at home playing with them.
“I passed the Area round and went to perform with the best ensemble in the State,” Cernosek said. “It was really awesome. I really did enjoy it a lot, it was really cool to hear how talented people across the state are. Basically everyone is super good and is really talented and when you put us together in one ensemble, it sounds really amazing.”
This year, Cernosek was the only band member at Cedar Park to make it to TMEA State. The title and award now label Cernosek as an “All-Stater” and make her chances of being accepted into music school higher. The TMEA competition accepts only 3% of all the students that audition. Cernosek was surprised when hearing the news of her making it to State.
“I was really shocked, the last audition that I did before, it wasn’t my best audition,” Cernosek said. “But the competition was so fierce in the flute room that it was hard to tell who would get the top of the room, and who would get the bottom of the room, but I did really well on two of my pieces that I had to perform, so I was feeling really good about it. You really get to master the music which was cool, it’s like 3 a tudes long we get to play and it sounds like a long time and that it would be tedious, but in music you always find something new to work on.”
In addition to marching band and TMEA, Cernosek is also in National English Honor Society and National Honor Society, and also takes three AP classes.
“It’s really hard to fit homework in with all that,” Cernosek said. “So I’ll end up doing homework in DEN or whenever I get any kind of free time. I do my homework, then come home and work on anything I have to do for band, which ends up being 2-4 hours of practicing. I didn’t get a lot of free time during marching season or TMEA , but now that competition is over, I get a little more relaxation time.”
Cernosek is really proud of the band this year and can’t find her without her comrades. Even though her work load gets overloaded with band and school life, Cernosek always tries to find time for her social life.
“You would think that I don’t have much of a social life but my band friends are my family,” Cernosek said. “I see them every single day and we’ll hang out whenever we get the chance to. And all of our schedules are kind of the same, especially if we are in the same band here, and we’ll hang out on the weekends if we have time or after competitions because they’re my best friends.”
