![Senior Jett Mckinney stores all the clothes in his own room, with half of it stored in his closet along with his personal clothes, and the rest taking up space in his room.
“There’s been times [when] there’s so much clothing stored here and it gets overwhelming, so I end up having to sleep somewhere else in the house,” Mckinney said.](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/DSC_0951-1200x800.jpg)
![Broadcast, yearbook and newspaper combined for 66 Interscholastic League Press Conference awards this year. Yearbook won 43, newspaper won 14 and broadcast took home nine. “I think [the ILPC awards] are a great way to give the kids some acknowledgement for all of their hard work,” newspaper and yearbook adviser Paige Hert said. “They typically spend the year covering everyone else’s big moments, so it’s really cool for them to be celebrated so many times and in so many different ways.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/edited-ILPC.jpg)
![Looking down at his racket, junior Hasun Nguyen hits the green tennis ball. Hasun has played tennis since he was 9 years old, and he is on the varsity team. "I feel like it’s not really appreciated in America as much, but [tennis] is a really competitive and mentally challenging sport,” Nguyen said. “I’m really level-headed and can keep my cool during a match, and that helps me play a bit better under pressure.” Photo by Kyra Cox](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/hasun.jpg)
![Bringing her arm over her head and taking a quick breath, junior Lauren Lucas swims the final laps of the 500 freestyle at the regionals swimming competition on date. Lucas broke the school’s 18-year-old record for the 500 freestyle at regionals and again at state with a time of 4:58.63. “I’d had my eye on that 500 record since my freshman year, so I was really excited to see if I could get it at regionals or districts,” Lucas said. “ State is always a really fun experience and medaling for the first time was really great. It was a very very tight race, [so] I was a bit surprised [that I medaled]. [There were] a lot of fast girls at the meet in general, [and] it was like a dogfight back and forth, back and forth.” Photo by Kaydence Wilkinson](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Kaydence-2.7-23-edit-2.jpg)
![As her hair blows in the wind, senior Brianna Grandow runs the varsity girls 5K at the cross country district meet last Thursday. Grandow finished fourth in the event and led the varsity girls to regionals with a third place placement as a team. “I’m very excited [to go to regionals],” Grandow said. “I’m excited to race in Corpus Christi, and we get to go to the beach, so that’s really awesome.” Photo by Addison Bruce](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/brianna.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)
The hot rays of the August sun, the shimmering glint of the instruments and the scorching pavement bear down on the marching band as they have their third practice of the summer. After weeks of practicing, they were not only prepared for football season, but were also ready to enter their competition season.
In addition to competing and placing first at UIL Area and State, the band participated in the BOA (Bands of America) competitions. After placing 5th out of 113 bands at the Grand Nationals competition, the fall competition season came to a close. For senior drum major, Helashi Wijayawardhana, this placement was an emotional moment for her.
“I was sobbing at the very end,” Wijayawardhana said. “As soon as I brought my hands down after conducting the band, I was like, well, this is kind of it. Knowing that we got fifth with that good performance was really fun and it was a good way to end off my four years [of high school].”
The Grand Nationals competition took place in Indianapolis, on Nov. 14-17. With this being the last one, it was memorable for members and also directors of the band, according to assistant band director Jeremiah Armstrong.
“The most memorable moment was [when] all the parents that came up to Indianapolis made a cheer tunnel on the way to our finalist performance,” Armstrong said. “There [were] over 100 parents that were there, just cheering in a completely different state, and they followed everybody all the way into the stadium. That was so cool.”
Junior soloist Noah Levy got to perform a solo based off of “Joanna” from the musical “Sweeny Todd” at Grand Nationals for a crowd of about 30,000 people. According to him, this was a rewarding feeling.
“It was really awesome to represent the band in front of the national stage,” Levy said. “Setting down my trombone and looking at the crowd was a surreal experience. It’s cool to perform in front of such a large crowd and it was one of the most rewarding feelings.”
According to Armstrong and Wijayawardhana, the preparation for this season was not easy. Having a large freshman class meant that the leadership team had to adjust and adapt to figure out how best to help the new band members. Another challenge that the band faced was having to extend the season by a week and a half.
“We had more rehearsals than we normally do,” Armstrong said. “The time change made us extra exhausted. We literally rehearsed in the dark because our band pad does not have adequate lighting, so we just kept rehearsing past the point where we could no longer see.”
As the season came to a close, members of the band reminisced over the memories and connections that they formed.
“I really just grew a lot closer to my section this year,” senior Leadership Director Harrsion Whitfield said. “I realized that it was my last season and I wanted to make the most of it and get to know people as best as I [could]. What got me into the band was the music, but what made me stay was the people.”
According to Wijayawardhana, this final competition was special for her as a drum major. LShe said leading 300 members of the band was memorable for her and it also allowed her to learn lifelong skills.
“I just remember throwing my hands down at the end and bawling,” Wijayawardhana said. “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.’ 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.”
As the assistant band director, Armstrong said he can see the band’s improvement in both performance and also character since the summer.
“I think that everybody has become tremendously more gritty,” Armstrong said. “They can actually handle doing difficult things [which] was not the case at the beginning of the year. We definitely got stronger [through] our ability to persevere through difficult challenges. I think that everyone has a new sense of respect for each other as far as what they can expect out of each other.”
