![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)
Silence fills the room as order of the judges, who stare across the room at the standalone figure. The player clutches his instrument close to his chest in anticipation, the instrument composed of a series of buttons and spastic tubing. Giovani Lang-pale blows into his instrument, and the bass clarinet’s melody fills the room.
Giovani Lamg-pale is a senior who has been part of the honor band for two years. Lang-pale first joined band in seventh grade, and continued his journey throughout his four years of high school. The dual wielding clarinet player didn’t always have his eyes set on band, but there were moments throughout school that instilled in him a love for band.
“It first hit me in seventh grade in middle school,” Lang-pale said. “Whenever I saw my teacher teach the band and do everything that he did, he always seemed so happy, so excited, so enthusiastic to be there. I was pushed to stay and continue growing in band the first year I was able to actually march in the Cedar Park High School Band. I remember the thrill and the excitement that you feel when you’re on the field and doing the first full performance where you know for sure you’re going to nail it.”
Last year, Lang-pale placed third in the clarinet room for solo ensemble. At the Cedar Park High sShool Young Artist Competition, or CPAC, he played a solo with a pianist accompaniment and got an overall score of 93, but still wanted to improve his playing skills.
“It was very exciting to see the fruits of my labor reap something,” Lang-pale said. “My sophomore year I wasn’t as enthusiastic about doing all the music stuff. I wasn’t as engaged into my instrument or anything like that. So whenever the time came around for [CPAC], I did all right. But I didn’t do as good as I knew I could, and I didn’t do as good as I wanted to.”
This year, Lang-pale went off to compete in the TMEA state competition, placing seventh in state for bass clarinet.
“I play the B-flat clarinet,” Lang-pale said. “The B-flat is basically just the smaller version of the bass clarinet. I started off on the B-flat, and I’m playing it again this year for the CPAC. These are my loves. I love them.”
Although Lang-pale plays mainly the bass and B-flat clarinet, he also spends his free time playing saxophone, drawing and playing video games between his busy band schedule. Lang-pale hopes that his talents will be recognized by the University of Central Arkansas, which is where he hopes to follow in the footsteps of his band private lesson teacher.
“I’ve met the clarinet professor at UCA,” Lang-pale said. “She’s trained me and helped me with clarinet whenever I was auditioning for All-State. That was pretty cool. I hope my auditions go well; I audition March 9th, so that’ll be cool. From then on my goal is just to get a music degree and go from there.”
