![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)
After having coached tennis, taught in the leadership department, and took on health classes, Coach Randy Ballenger added another course to his roster: culinary.
“This is my first year teaching culinary arts and I love it,” Ballenger said. “I like seeing the kids try something new outside of their comfort zone and being able to see the results and get the understanding that it’s just food.”
The introduction to culinary arts class is the first culinary course and focuses on making foods from scratch. This year, they have made homemade pie doughs and pasta. The class teaches not only how to cook, but the students research the history of the food, where the food comes from and why they’re making it.
“I do like to cook, but I’ve actually learned a lot more myself while doing this,” Ballenger said. “It’s been a joy and refreshing to learn something new. I kind of like how the class is a little chaotic, it’s fun to have a bunch of people doing different things at different times. All of the chaos builds something and I love seeing their expression of being like ‘wow we just did that’.’”
Lesson planning consists of brainstorming the recipes, but also being able to demonstrate it for the students. In addition, the culinary teachers research their dishes prior to introducing them to the students. Next year, Ballenger plans to use new recipes to add something new.
“Advanced culinary [class] cooks more difficult dishes but they also cook more in general, we’re just kind of learning the introduction part of it,” Ballenger said. “This class helps you prepare for the future because if you want to save money later on, you can cook for yourself.”
In his 19 years at Cedar Park, Ballenger has coached PE and tennis, and taught Professional Communications, or Prof Comm, health, maps and PALs. PALs is a program that allows juniors and seniors to go to the middle school and surrounding elementary schools to mentor students who choose to be in the program. These students are assigned two kids that they pull out of class to do activities or talk to them.
“My favorite class I’ve taught is PALs because I think it was the most rewarding for both the students and the kids that they work with,” Ballenger said. “Our PALs program has really hit the ground running. I think the program has done an amazing job establishing that culture at that young age and seeing students want to be in the pals program and want to help out is amazing and a lot of it is that awesome dude next door to me, [Mr. Lippe].”
Ballenger attended Hardin-Simmons University and majored in Kinesiology. In addition, Ballenger was a tennis athlete from childhood all the way through college.
“I didn’t always want to be a teacher,” Ballenger said. “I envisioned myself being a doctor, physician or pediatrician, but I tell my students all the time that I’ve always had a passion and a love for kids and I’ve always had a passion for sports. I realized [I wanted to teach] after my college tennis coach told me I should pick up coaching. I started teaching for a little bit and then I fell in love with it.”
Ballenger’s experience with tennis extends far back and he could have gone to school with a tennis scholarship, but said he fell in love with Hardin-Simmons. He played in national tournaments and won championships at this university.
“My favorite wins were my team wins,” Ballenger said. “I love success individually but being surrounded by my teammates whenever we won as a team was so much more rewarding. The best advice I’ve gotten was ‘don’t let your mouth do the talking but let your actions, playing and racket do the talking’ meaning you leave it all on the court and don’t think too much about it.”
Outside of school, Ballenger said he enjoys playing fantasy football, goinging on hikes and exploring trails and snow skiing. He says that they’re all passions of his and he enjoys being outdoors. When in school, Ballenger also learns and says that teaching professional communications has taught him how to be genuine with his students and build relationships with them.
“The culture [at Cedar Park] is unique,” Ballenger said. “I’ve talked to some family members to try to explain it, but it’s just a different place, and just incredible. At the foundation, everyone has always been supportive, encouraging and helpful. There’s not that much pressure, and if there is, it’s healthy pressure.”
