![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)
Chief Harlan Reporting For Duty
Senior Class President Talks Leadership, Science, Passions
Wearing a cowboy hat, senior Ainsley Harlan shoots a no-opinion smile during her senior portrait shoot. Harlan will study Biochemistry at the University of Missouri. “I’m excited for college,” Harlan said. “I think it’s going to be a new experience. It’s definitely going to be throwing myself into a different pool and demographic of people and I’m just going to go with the flow.” Photo By Chad Harlan
May 5, 2023
For Ainsley Harlan, every week is a busy week. After-school and before-school honor society meetings, Student Council events, senior class Instagram postings and DECA meets are all a part of her daily regimen. This year, she’s added on another task: Senior Class president.
From running the senior class group chat, competing in DECA tournaments, helping plan Prom 2022 and leading the environmental initiative for Student Council, Harlan has done it all. As the class president, Harlan’s goal for this year was to unite the senior class. And as the year is coming to a close, it seems that she has done exactly that.
“[Taking on] Senior Class President is probably the biggest and most time-consuming role I’ve taken,” Harlan said. “Especially because we’re the senior class and because we’re graduating, there’s so much happening and going on at the moment. So, I pretty much run the senior college posts, senior assassin game, senior prank and also plan senior skip day. Basically anything seniors want to do, I’m there helping plan it.”
Apart from her class presidential duties, Harlan has stayed involved in a variety of other organizations around the school, such as Student Council, DECA, PALS, NEHS and SNHS. A scholar through and through, Harlan prides herself on her achievements.
“I am president of NEHS and SNHS, and I hold general membership in Mu Alpha Theta honor society and NHS,” Harlan explained. “I also compete in DECA. I absolutely love it. [This year], my teammates, Ariana Balakrishnan, Delaney McClure, and I competed in a team event for an Integrated Marketing Campaign and we’re alternatives for internationals. Ariana and I are three time state qualifiers for DECA.”
Though Harlan has spent a lot of time in the DECA classroom planning marketing campaigns and prepping speeches, she balanced her time in the Student Council room as well.
“I’ve poured a lot of my time into StuCo,” Harlan said. “As Senior Class President, I’ve been working on that all year, 24/7. But, even before this year, I was at StuCo a lot and put in a lot of time. [Student Council] reaches a lot of the student body, so I’ve reached the most people with that. You’re not catering to a specific group as a very general broad thing and it keeps me on my toes, which I love. I’ve kind of found my leadership outlet in our weekly Friday meetings in Mr. Babich’s room.”
Outside of school, Harlan works two jobs, at Ice and Field at the Crossover, and also as a camp director for a children’s sports camp. As a director, Harlan organizes and runs all the registration for the camp, which averages to about 70 kids a day, and starts up every time there’s a break in the school year. As a general rink attendant, Harlan works the front and runs the hockey rink.
“I work with kids a lot,” Harlan said. “So I babysit constantly, but I just love working with kids – I do PALS as well at the school, which is really fun for me. “[Kids] are such an innocent group. It is really easy for them to see the good in the world and it always cheers me up. It’s also just fun to go roll out in the mud and have fun like a child again with other children – that’s just really cool, especially since I take on so much sometimes. I can get really stressed, so being able to just let loose is perfect for me.”
Harlan plans on studying Biochemistry at the University of Missouri. She plans to use her degree to either go Pre Med or go into veterinary sciences to get a DVM, or Doctor of Veterinary Medicine.
“[After that], I plan to hopefully go back and minor in business and get my MBA,” Harlan said. “[I want to] start my own veterinary clinic. I have always held a deep love for science and I love animals. I love helping them.”
Along with her passion for kids, animals and leadership, Harlan said she is excited for wherever the future takes her.
“I have a lot to look forward to,” Harlan said. “I think a lot isn’t planned, but that’s kind of the best part because I’m just figuring it out as I go. I love being busy and having a plan, but at the end of the day, sometimes it’s nice to just not know where life is taking you and go with it. I’m excited for college, I think it’s going to be a new experience. It’s definitely going to be throwing myself into a different pool and demographic of people and I’m just going to go with the flow.”
