![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)
![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)
![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)
The Current Between Us
Color Guard Prepares to Perform New Show Tomorrow
The color guard wins UIL 5A State Champions with band while performing with the theme “Eye See,” which includes vibrant and colorful shades of blue and purple for costumes. The color guard will perform their new show tomorrow with the theme electricity. “I think performances are really valuable to the program,” sophomore Lily Dodds said. “We get to show off and people get to see what we’re capable of.”
January 21, 2022
The crowd of the roaring arena excitedly cheers to see colorful flags wave across the field. As the band blares their music, the lights fall at the center of the stage and the color guard performance begins.
The color guard program will perform their new show tomorrow at Hayes High School. The winter guard has been continuously working on perfecting their show for several months, according to color guard captain Peyton Perrone.
“When performing, we’re able to show off all of our hard work to an audience and put on a good show,” Perrone said. “It’s fun knowing people come to competitions just to see you perform because they love the energy of the show. It feels really exciting stepping onto the floor and getting ready to show off. It almost gets hard to control your adrenaline so you have to stay calm and do what you know”
Alongside the band, the color guard is one of the main visual attractions during football games and band performances. The staff, including director Casey Kunze and two to three choreographers, help teach intricate tosses and acrobatic tricks.
“We have never had one performance where everyone was dissatisfied and upset about how we did,”sophomore Sofia Campos said. “We always came back screaming and crying, not because of dissatisfaction, but because of what we had just experienced, the inevitable rush and the feeling of greatness.”
The color guard team is back-to-back-to-back-to-back UIL 5A State Marching Band Champions. Their program focuses on community, hard work and time management skills.
“Our state finals performance was electrifying but also a little scary because the audience was completely full,” Perrone said. “The audience went wild for the first hit and you could feel the field light up. As a senior, it was so fun to perform one of our last shows knowing that when we got off the field we had performed the best we could.”
The theme for the state band competition was “Eye See,” which focused on band history using music from previous years. The band program integrated multiple older shows and used a symbol of a triangle eye. This represented the band program being a new band after the unfortunate effects of COVID-19. The color guard wore different shades of blue and purple with the band logo on their chest.
“Performing at state was one of the best feelings of my life,” Campos said. “I love the crowds and the adrenaline, being in front of the percussion during band season and hearing the drums through your chest and the beats hitting every part of your body and really feeling the music of the band while performing.”
Color guard rehearses every Monday, Wednesday and occasional Saturday. Their rehearsal takes place in the high school cafeteria, but sometimes they use the middle school gym to rehearse. The program has not performed since the fall season but continues to learn from designers and choreographers about new drills for their upcoming show. They started preparing for this show since last semester and the show is called “The Current Between Us.”
“We have been on the grind trying to put the last few details together,” Perrone said. “We have been working since early November to put in drill, choreography, and performance together. Our season lasts until late March so we’re going to continue to practice a lot and hopefully reach our full potential.”
Color guard uses flags and costumes that correspond with a certain theme for the performance, where they perform dynamic dances with their flags with the band. Tomorrow’s performance will display incorporate shades of blues and greens and will showcase lightning bolts.
“We have had many choreographers come in who have worked with amazing world-class guards,” sophomore Ava Perrone said. “They teach us dance, saber, rifle, and flag choreography and we learn new tricks and tosses. We love all of the people putting their time into our new skills at our upcoming show.”
The team hopes to grow in members and grow the community. They’re always looking for new members and are always interested in recruiting for the 2022-2023 season.
“The community is overall very positive,” Sophomore Lily Dodds said. “We’re constantly helping each other and making sure we are improving. We all look out for each other and I definitely don’t think I’d be as advanced as I am without the people around me.”
