Kassidy Wilkinson, Reporter
Kassidy is a senior and third year reporter. She was born in the early 2000s to Rachelle and Jayson Wilkinson who gave her a name and a few other things like shelter, hope… and four other siblings her exact age. Along with her other quintuplet siblings, Kassidy is a part of the CPHS pickleball club. She believes Diet Coke is heaven’s water, and spends her time reading romance novels, dreaming of Torchy’s Tacos and writing articles. Also, she believes that the Nigersaurus is the best dinosaur.
![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)
![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)
![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)
![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)
![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)
![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)
![Hope Squad is a peer-to-peer mental health support system focused on suicide prevention. Lead Counselor Sarah Cable volunteered Cedar Park High School to be the first campus in the district to implement the program into the school. “In my previous campus, I had three suicides,” Cable said. “It’s really, really hard. Hard to go through those things. Having the three losses of students on campus was so tragic and detrimental to everyone that knew them and was around them and their families and friends. If we can prevent the loss of a life and be proactive, I think we should try anything that we can. [By trying Hope Squad] we’re not just trying something willy-nilly; we’re trying something that schools have been using for a while and has seen success with.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Hope-Squad.png)
![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)
![Dressed in the school colors, senior Jack Malouff poses for the camera in the bleachers during a football game. During his senior year, Malouff was able to meet lots of people while he was one of the student section leaders. “[My job] was to get everyone involved in the crowd,” Malouff said. “[I brought] the fun things like the trash cans, bells, costumes, whistles, whatever I could bring. Tissue paper, toilet paper, whatever it was. But it was less of a job and more just having fun with everyone.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Jack-M.png)
![Standing with their hands raised to the sky, show choir finishes their performance of “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen performed in the winter concert. This year, the show choir participated in the Capital City Showcase where they sang and danced to “Crocodile Rock” and “Don’t Stop Me Now.” “My favorite memory in show choir is the showcase,” freshman Eshita Agrawal said. “We were the first to perform, and we got the chance to watch all the other amazing contestants. [We] were amazed. It was an amazing experience, I think we bonded very well.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Show-Choir.png)
![Holding a bucket of materials in one hand and a roll of tape in another, anatomy and biology teacher Tyler Terry prepares for a lab. Terry said his proudest moments are when his students are happy to see him. “When I take my wife to a football game or something and a bunch of students want to say hi to me or they like to smile and wave and it just makes me feel good that the students are really kind and supportive of me,” Terry said. “[I’m also] proud when I see students perform really well in their extracurriculars because I can see how hard they’re working in my classes, [so] when I see that they’re also working so hard in other things. Like they’re winning band competitions or they’re getting awards for their theater productions, or I see them put on their choir shows, that’s like, wow, you guys are incredible.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Rags-6.png)
![Researching today's stock market and looking for trends, junior Mason Crews competes with his twin brother Owen Crews in the DECA Stock Market Game. According to Mason, working as a team makes it easier to spot trends that would negatively affect their value. “There’s been a few times where I found something I thought would work and then Owen found some sort of trend or something that makes it look like [a stock] is going to go up,” Mason said. “Then we don’t [buy] it and the next day it goes up 40%. Or I research the stocks for the day and I don’t find anything but Owen finds something that’s going to go up 40% the next day.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/image-of-crews.png)
![One student talks about how attractive they imagine the main protagonist is, another describes the negative effects mental health can have on a student, and a third just blatantly states that she hates the ending of her book. The club Page Turners, led by President senior Ellie Knaggs, meets every Tuesday in the library and is a place for students to come and talk about books. “It’s just a place to come and bring so many ideas and opinions into play,” Knaggs said. “We have had some really great discussions in the past, sometimes it’s just talking about like ‘Oh yes, I love that trope’ or ‘this fictional couple is so cute.’ Sometimes the [author] talked about this really heavy topic like abuse or hunger or war and I think it’s something we should talk about and so we will.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-STRESS.png)
![Dressed as a cow, PALs member and junior Lynnea Bergman smiles at her friends with a face covered in whipped cream. The annual trunk or treat took place on Oct. 26 during which the PALs pie in the face activity was very popular, according to Bergman. “We were doing a pie in the face and cakewalk to get the kids to have fun,” Bergman said. “Some of the kids in the PALs [program were at the trunk or treat] and they got to pie us in the face. [My favorite memory] so far is probably getting pied in the face by a four year old. He went so hard and it was very funny.” Photo courtesy of Lilly Adams, used with permission](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Trunk-or-Treat-Photo-Lilly-182-1200x800.png)
![Leaning back on her right, varsity tennis member junior Mia Petty prepares to receive the ball with the traditional racket swing. For student athletes, the heat has caused many changes to previously created habits involved in sport practices, but it can also be a tool, according to Petty. "The heat is definitely annoying," Petty said. "There are so many things that you have to do to avoid exhaustion and it feels excessive at times. [However], I think the heat further encourages me to get outside. [I want to] be exposed to the heat as much as possible so I can better acclimate to being hot and tired."](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Natalia-Varsity-Tennis-Mia-Petty-50.jpg)
![Lying on the shelf in the science fiction section of the library are a wide variety of novels, with classics such as “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins and “The Maze Runner” by James Dashner. Reading is a gateway to different worlds and can take readers on an adventure they can’t experience in their own life, giving them the opportunity to escape from their current reality, according to English teacher Jessica Logsdon. “Reading has given me a much-needed outlet. [It has] provided stability [and] consistency in times of uncertainty, and allowed me to build a community of readers around me.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/20230510_080125-1-1-900x600.jpg)
![Whereas classical art depicts a scene and tells a story, often of mythology or religious references, artists of modern times focus more on expressing ideas and feelings. The style of back then has since been replaced by splashes of color, curvy lines and other new art techniques. "[Over time] I think art has shifted more to emotion rather than human beauty, " sophomore Braeden Murray said. "Modern art is significantly more abstract and doesn't have an obvious theme in mind. Very simple shapes, no people to be seen, and more colorful. I think in the older [time period] the art was definitely more human based, with biblical [references] while modern art is more emotion based because it's not depicting a particular scene or action that's happening.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/2023-vs-1503.png)
![Leaping into the air, bending towards the water to complete his dive, sophomore Rustin Wilkinson competes in the first dive competition of the season, Mavwood invitational. Wilkinson has been diving for a year and a half and is seeded second for districts. “Diving is hard because it requires you to know where you are in the air,” Rustin said. “You have to know which rotation you are in when you are spinning. [I dive] because I want to get in the top ten at state. Last year [at state] I got second to last, but this year I want to get in the top ten so I can see all my hard work and perseverance pay off.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/PicOfRUSTIN-900x600.jpg)
![Under the hot sun of Arizona, social studies teacher Mark Tibbetts and his dog, Boston, pose for a picture. Tibbetts got his masters in education at the University of Arizona, where he was living when he was reunited with his dog after five years. “[Boston] taught me balance,” Tibbetts said. “It’s a test of how far you are willing to go to take care of another creature whether it's a dog or a human. Learning how to take care of another living thing takes a lot of maturity because you have to put it before yourself. [Boston] brings me a lot of joy, happiness, and love. I love this dog more than the world, I’d do anything for him.” (Photo Courtesy of Mark Tibbetts)](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/usemedoggy.png)
![Watching the eyes of the opposing player, sophomore Avery Nelson carefully waits for her to decide the play. The girl’s water polo team were seated second in their district at the beginning of their season. “[Being a goalie] is very stressful,” Nelson said. “[It] feels like all the pressure is on you because you're the last line of defense, when the offensive opponents are coming at you, you always have to be on your guard. And It's very tough mentally because you always beat yourself up.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Avery-Wp.jpg)
