![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)
![Delicately placing the string to form the shape of a cornucopia, seniors Haley Burton and Avery Nelson create the November arrangement for the Flower of the Month Club. This club is led by Advanced Floral Design Students and provides a monthly arrangement to community members who subscribe to receive them. “I think flower of the month club is a really impactful way to show your loved ones ‘hey I really care about you,’ or even if they’re just for yourself, they’re a little pick-me-up throughout the month that [say] ‘I’m doing ok, and these flowers make my day a little bit brighter,” Nelson said. “I like giving people flowers because people value the flowers more and they value themselves more.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Ava-Holmes-3-edit.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)
In its final season of 5A football, the Cedar Park Timberwolves went 7-4, upset the number four team in the state, and won a district championship. However, with the addition of Vandergrift High School and Rouse High School, Cedar Park will lose a large number of students. The University Interscholastic League (UIL), who organizes every high school in Texas into separate districts, bases their decisions on which school goes to whichever district according to the school’s population. Since the school’s population has dropped due to the opening of Vandegrift High School, next year the Timberwolves will move down to a 4A school after re-evaluation.
With this move, all sports teams at Cedar Park High will be affected. Because there are less 4A schools than 5A schools in the area, Cedar Park will have to travel farther to play other 4A schools. The Timberwolves have experience playing 4A schools already. This year the football team took on Lake Travis and lost the game 17-54. So, even though Cedar Park will play smaller schools, there will still be a lot of tough competition such as LTHS.
“I think that the change will definitely benefit all our teams next year because we aren’t losing very many players so we will still be playing at a 5A level against 4A schools,” Tyler Stromberg, senior basketball player, said.
When the change is made from 5A to 4A, the districts will change as well. Cedar Park will likely be placed in District 25-4A, which consists of Lake Travis, Dripping Springs, Hutto, Killeen, Lampasas, Marble Falls, and Hendrickson High School. This will be a huge change as far as traveling goes, because the average distance of a District 25-4A school is 35.4 miles and 45 minutes from CPHS. Cedar Park would still play close schools in non-district games, such as Leander and Vista Ridge, but the majority of the schedule will be their district opponents.
Even without a mass of players, 4A schools have reputations for sending star players into college. In fact, University of Texas quarterback Colt McCoy came from a 2A high school that had a population of just 330 students. Colleges know that Texas is the best state to recruit in football, no matter what school they go to. In fact, Class of 2010 quarterback Aaron Doyle of Evant High School (1A school north of Lampasas) has received offers from Division I schools like Oklahoma State, Texas Tech and the University of Houston. Whether it’s the rigor of Texas football or just the quality of the players, 4A athletes will still be recognized by colleges. High School Sports.Net, a website that evaluates and ranks sports teams from all districts, had five 4A teams placed in the Top 25 football rankings and one 3A team in there as well.
“I think they (4A teams) will be just as talented,” Joseph Washington, junior wide receiver, said. “I think we’ll have an advantage coming from 5A and having 5A experience, but as far as talent and students count, they will be just as good.”
Even though 4A schools have talented players, they lack depth because their teams are smaller than 5A schools. Lack of depth is always a concern, especially if a team in one-dimensional. There may be good players, but not enough of them.
“Moving to 4A inevitable means a drop in the level of competition,” Robert Thompson, junior soccer player, said. “I’m definitely looking forward to it though, because it would give me and the boys a really good shot at a state title, which would be extra special my senior year.”
All Timberwolf sports will be affected by the change, except one. Wrestling is the only sport that does not have classifications. The wrestling team enters a variety of meets every year and travel all over the state to places like Houston and San Antonio regularly, so they take on several different teams with several different levels of talent.
“Wrestling doesn’t put schools in classes so it won’t affect our team at all,” Ben Quarrels, senior, said. “We have a very good competition level and always will.”
The change will have an impact on everyone else, however, and it will be interesting to see how Timberwolf athletics will adapt.The Timberwolves have an opportunity to take advantage early while the majority of their players will still be here next year, so look out 4A, you may have a new powerhouse.
