![Walking through the tunnel created by the cheerleaders and Celebrities, senior Frances Tran smiles as the soccer team is sent off during DEN for their playoff game against Rouse tonight. Tran said the wins against Smithson Valley and Alamo Heights gave the team a morale boost to take on the Raiders tonight. “I know we were not 100% confident in those games,” Tran said. “But, Rouse is a big opponent for sure. We’re definitely going into tonight with a lot of morale [because of the previous wins].”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/frances-tran.jpg)
![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)
![Catching a ball, junior Alivia Robinson plays at the Cedar Park vs Glenn game. Having played since she was 5 years old, she is dedicated to softball and has committed to UTPB for softball. “When I got my offer it took me a very long time to decide where,” Robinson said. “Softball has always been my dream for college, and UTPB is my fit. When [I committed] I knew I was going to be loved and supported.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Lilly-Adams-3.13aliviaedit-901.jpg)
![Holding her dog, Nova, senior Ariana Balakrishnan poses for her senior pictures while Nova wears a bandana with her college decision. Balakrishnan applied to 18 colleges in total, but she decided on Columbia in the end. “Right before I clicked the button to open Columbia’s letter, I literally looked at the camera and go ‘This is just gonna really suck because I wanted it so bad,’ and I clicked it and all of a sudden you hear trumpets,” Balakrishnan said. “There’s a video that plays when you open it and I actually didn’t watch the video, I just watched the screen go black, because every day of December before ED [Early Decision] I would go on YouTube and watch the acceptance video to manifest it, so immediately when the screen went black, I started screaming and jumping up and down. And my parents in the video are like ‘What are you doing, where’s the letter,’ and I was just screaming ‘I got in, I got in.” I just started crying, and it just felt like everything in the world came together.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/ariana-2-300x217.jpg)
In the echoing small gym, cheers and laughter bounce off the walls as students grow more invested in the game unraveling before them. With every thud of a dodgeball hitting the shiny floors, one team gets closer to winning.
The principal’s advisory committee and student counsel worked together to set up a dodgeball tournament that student teams could compete in after paying a fee. These teams competed during DEN in the small gym every day from Feb. 21 to March 1. The funds raised from the tournament will go toward a schoolwide field day once AP testing ends. According to sophomore representative Chris Nicholson, depending on how many funds they have, bouncy houses and vendors are in the plans for the event.
“We tried to talk to all of our friends to get the word out,” Nicholson said. “The announcements really were our main goal in doing that though. We weren’t really sure about how to do this because no one had done this before, so we kind of got in over our heads. We were trying to get it done so fast, but it was mostly word of mouth and trying to encourage our friends.”
The idea for the dodgeball tournament came right before Christmas break, leaving little time to prepare when break ended. When school started again, there were only a few weeks to consider everyone’s roles, how to spread the word, uncertainty about level of participation and other logistics.
“I enjoyed being able to orchestrate this tournament for the students because I know a lot of them had fun with it,” senior student leader of the principal’s Student Advisory Committee, Jadyn Morgan said. “It was just really fun watching the people play. They got a lot more into it than I thought they would. I thought people were just going to play it just like a silly game, but people were actually taking it really seriously. That was entertaining, just watching everyone actually play and have fun.”
At the beginning of the year, the advisory committee sent out a form asking what students wanted to improve about the school. Morgan said most students said that they wanted more fun, schoolwide events, which led to the ideas for the dodgeball tournament and field day.
“The last time I did a field day was in middle school and it was probably the best day of that school year,” sophomore player Raymund Lin said. “Having a field day at the high school would be weird but also nostalgic and it would be fun to go back to my childhood. I think myself and other students would enjoy a day to relax like that.”
Nicholson’s main job was in helping organize the advertising aspect. To spread the word, announcements were made in the morning, they were interviewed on the Wolfcast and hung up posters.
“It was my first time ever being interviewed for broadcast or anything like that, so that was cool,” Nicholson said. “It was fun getting to come up with posters and hang them around and watch as more people got excited for it, so I thought that was really fun.”
The tournament had eight teams total; each team had six players with one captain who relayed information to the rest of the team. All players had to pay $3 and sign a form agreeing to the rules of the game.
“I had to email everyone and let them know what time their dodgeball game was,” Morgan said. “The communication aspect was a lot to handle. It was a little stressful but I knew we would get it done. I wasn’t too concerned because the committee has around 16 of us, so I had 15 other people helping me along with Mr. Sloan and Mr. Pierce, which made it very manageable.”
Nicholson said that watching the games was a lot of fun, specifically the match between the Under Dodges (staff), and the robotics team (Lin’s team).
“We managed to get quite a few people in the tournament on short notice even though a lot of people unfortunately didn’t find out until last minute,” Nicholson said. “We now know there are more people that wanted to join and we’re hoping to do this again next year, so that’s encouraging. It’s been really fun in general and there was a great turnout. A lot of people came to watch the games everyday which has been really encouraging. It’s nice to know that the school actually enjoyed this and that people wanted to participate.”
