![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)
She waits in anticipation for the phone call that could change her life. Thinking of all the hard work that she has put into her training and the people that have motivated her to get to where she is today, she knows she is ready to start her future swimming journey. Then, the phone rings and she is welcomed into the Longhorn family.
Junior student athlete Ella Mongenel committed to the University of Texas on the Women’s Swim and Dive team this November. She has participated in competitive swimming since she was three years old and competed on club swim team since she was eight years old. Although Mongenel committed in November, she has been in contact with the UT coaches since June.
“The recruiting process has been a really long process,” Mongenel said. “There were lots of phone calls I had to make with the college coaches. I also had to take recruiting trips where I had to go to the school and really get to see the campus and get to know the coaches and have them watch me swim.”
Throughout the course of getting recruited, Mongenel was in constant communication with the University coaches in order to finalize her commitment. According to Mongenel, the swimming community is small, so she had already known the coaches throughout her years of club swimming and swimming camps; this helped her stay connected and later commit.
“They reached out to me and I continued talking to them throughout the months [leading up to my commitment],” Mongenel said. “They would come to certain competitions and they would watch me swim. I was able to take an official recruiting swimming trip to UT and got to see the college swimmers and really get to know them. I even got to train with them for a day, so that was a really cool experience to see the academic and swimming side of UT.”
Mongenel competes at Nitro Swimming, where she mainly competes in sprinting heats, which includes the 50 meter freestyle, 100 meter freestyle but does not exclude participating in other events such as the 200 meter individual medley and 100 meter breastroke. Mongenel is continuing to train at Nitro, where she practices every morning and afternoon.
“I am definitely training a lot,” Mongenel said. “I am training morning and at night so I definitely go back and forth between academics and sports. In practice, I do a lot of technique based stuff, endurance training, aerobic work, stroke training; just a little bit of everything”
Mongenel was a member of the 2023 5A State Championship Girls Swim and Dive Team, where she contributed to the achievement with a 1st place in the 50 meter freestyle and 2nd place in the 100 meter Freestyle. Although Mongenel is only competing in club swim this year, she plans on rejoining the school’s Girls Swim and Dive team for her senior year.
“One of my favorite memories is winning state with the girls,” Mongenel said. “It is my proudest accomplishment for high school [career]. I really enjoyed the senior class of 2023 and I felt like we were very close and really bonded. Everything clicked at state and we were all very motivated to accomplish big dreams for CPHS.”
Mongenel’s love of swimming began when she was very young, and as she got older swim became more than just her love for the sport but also helped her get into her dream school. She has now been competing with various club organizations for nine years of her swimming career.
“From a very young age my mom put me into swim,” Mongenel said. “She wanted to make sure I learned it as a basic survival skill and I fell in love with it. I stuck it out and continued to fall in love with it. Now I have been doing club for about nine years and been through a few club programs.”
According to Mongenel, her commitment is not finalized until her senior year but she is eager for her future swimming career as a Longhorn. She said the people around her such as her teammates and her family have been a heavy influence on how she has gotten to where she is today.
“To young swimmers,” Mongenel said. “Don’t be so hard on yourselves. Trust the process and don’t overthink everything that you can’t control. Focus on the things you can control and have fun with the sport. You can’t swim forever so make the best memories you possibly can with the teammates around you.”
