![Broadcast, yearbook and newspaper combined for 66 Interscholastic League Press Conference awards this year. Yearbook won 43, newspaper won 14 and broadcast took home nine. “I think [the ILPC awards] are a great way to give the kids some acknowledgement for all of their hard work,” newspaper and yearbook adviser Paige Hert said. “They typically spend the year covering everyone else’s big moments, so it’s really cool for them to be celebrated so many times and in so many different ways.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/edited-ILPC.jpg)
![Looking down at his racket, junior Hasun Nguyen hits the green tennis ball. Hasun has played tennis since he was 9 years old, and he is on the varsity team. "I feel like it’s not really appreciated in America as much, but [tennis] is a really competitive and mentally challenging sport,” Nguyen said. “I’m really level-headed and can keep my cool during a match, and that helps me play a bit better under pressure.” Photo by Kyra Cox](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/hasun.jpg)
![Bringing her arm over her head and taking a quick breath, junior Lauren Lucas swims the final laps of the 500 freestyle at the regionals swimming competition on date. Lucas broke the school’s 18-year-old record for the 500 freestyle at regionals and again at state with a time of 4:58.63. “I’d had my eye on that 500 record since my freshman year, so I was really excited to see if I could get it at regionals or districts,” Lucas said. “ State is always a really fun experience and medaling for the first time was really great. It was a very very tight race, [so] I was a bit surprised [that I medaled]. [There were] a lot of fast girls at the meet in general, [and] it was like a dogfight back and forth, back and forth.” Photo by Kaydence Wilkinson](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Kaydence-2.7-23-edit-2.jpg)
![As her hair blows in the wind, senior Brianna Grandow runs the varsity girls 5K at the cross country district meet last Thursday. Grandow finished fourth in the event and led the varsity girls to regionals with a third place placement as a team. “I’m very excited [to go to regionals],” Grandow said. “I’m excited to race in Corpus Christi, and we get to go to the beach, so that’s really awesome.” Photo by Addison Bruce](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/brianna.jpg)
Chalk and Jump Ropes and Painting, Oh My!
PACK Organizes Courtyard PACKtivity to Destress, Have Fun After PSAT
Running in a three-legged race, students participate in the Oct. 10 PACKtivity in the courtyard.
October 10, 2018
After four long hours of PSAT and Senior Summit, students flooded into the courtyard today at 3:05 p.m. for this year’s first PACKtivity. There was chalk, hula-hooping, three-legged races, jump roping and pumpkin painting, all of which was set up by PACK, a club with hopes of bringing the student body closer together.
For most of the 45 minute event, freshman Arya Yazdi was hanging around the jump rope station. While two students held the ends of the long rope, Yazdi and about five others rushed in to all jump at once. He said that although he had not met most of those jumping with him, they were still able to have a fun time.
In mid-jump, freshman Arya Yazdi spends time jump roping at the PACKtivity in the courtyard on Oct. 10. He said that many of the people jumping together did not know each other, but they were still able to enjoy the fun. “Everyone was going together, no one knew anybody,” Yazdi said. “We were just hyping each other up and urging each other to keep going.”
“Everyone was going together, no one knew anybody,” Yazdi said. “We were just hyping each other up and urging each other to keep going.”
Sophomore Stephani Gonzalez drew on the pavement with chalk during the event and said that even though she got messy, it was her favorite aspect of the PACKtivity.
“Being able to draw in such a large scale is not something you get very often,” Gonzalez said. “So being able to do that and experiment was a lot of fun.”
She said that with people admiring students’ chalk creations and laughing together, the chalk also helped her feel one with the pack.
“It definitely feels like it strengthened our bonds,” Gonzalez said. “[The chalk] certainly gets you out there, especially when you are drawing and you have a huge crowd around you.”
Holding up her pumpkin outside of the cafeteria during the fall PACKtivity on Oct. 10, sophomore Vivianna Mendieta lets her paint dry. After re-painting her pumpkin three times, Mendieta finally settled on blue, which inspired her to then do her makeup in the acrylic. “This was last minute thinking,” Mendieta said. “Makeup is basically like the canvas is your face.”
To contribute to this event’s fall theme, PACK brought mini pumpkins to paint on the tables outside of the cafeteria. Sophomore Vivianna Mendieta painted her pumpkin blue, and then decided to use the acrylic to give herself makeup as well. She said that having more options and going by a specific theme made this PACKtivity stand out from previous ones.
“I actually liked this one more than the others, this was more fun,” Mendieta said. “We got to choose what we did and there was actual fall stuff to do which was good.”
In addition to bringing the pumpkins, second-year PACK member, sophomore Abby Cheek, also made sure all of the club’s stations were prepared beforehand. She said that with this year’s slightly different twist on the PACKtivity, such as clubs like Mu Alpha Theta and Key Club getting to run their own stations, a wider range of people were reached.
“I think it did a good job of making everyone feel included,” Cheek said. “I feel like if somebody was just standing alone then the people in PACK did a good job in trying to reach out.”
