![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)
![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)
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.”
