![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)
Hoppe wins $10,000 Scholarship at Skillathon
At the County stock show in January, junior Charlie Hoppe directs his pig. The competition requires the competitors to look at the judges while keeping control of the pigs. “It can sometimes be really difficult to control the pigs,” Hoppe said. “Knowing where exactly to go, all at the same time keeping an eye on the judges and your surroundings, really makes you be on top of your toes.”
March 25, 2015
The Swine Skillathon is a pig competition where junior Charlie Hoppe won a $10,000 scholarship on Feb. 11-13. This competition helps expand the swine industry to students that are in FFA or interested in this specific industry. Students from high schools can compete for the winning scholarship of $10,000, after passing the requirements of the competition. Hoppe has participated in the competition before, but this was his first win.
“I did the competition last year so I knew from participating in the first time, that I wanted to do it again and try to get that scholarship,” Hoppe said. “I suspected that I was going to do it again during the school year, and so I started preparing for it and signed up in November, so from mid-December to early February I studied and spent the bulk of my time for training for it.”
Hoppe didn’t prepare alone, FFA sponsor and agriculture teacher Jack Winterrowd helped Hoppe learn the necessary information for the competition. The assessment covers skeletal parts, cuts of meat and tools of the trade. Hoppe tried several different methods of preparation for the competition.
“After they posted all the study material online I printed it out and looked over it whenever I got the chance,” Hoppe said. “Then I practiced for about three months preparing for the hard part of the competition, the essay requirement. There was also a speech at the end, if you made it to the finals; so I went over current topics and prepared what my speech could potentially be over, it took a while to get the right topic.”
The $10,000 scholarship really motivated Hoppe to enter the competition again, especially after not winning last year’s competition.
“We were there anyway showing purebred gilts and so it was just another opportunity to compete,” Hoppe said. “I always had been interested in the swine industry and I wanted to do things with pigs and learn about them, so the competition got my attention; I felt like I could do well in it this year and winning one of those scholarships was my major incentive for doing it.”
