![The cross country team poses for the camera after finishing the district meet. The varsity boys, JV boys and JV girls all placed third and the varsity girls placed fourth. “Coach put in the right training for us for this season, so I think we will be peaking this week and the next couple of weeks,” varsity runner and junior Nathan Kukla said. “The chances of making it to state are very high, but we don’t settle for the lowest and there is always going to be that chance, so [we] race for the best.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Heidi-831-1200x900.jpg)
![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)
![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)
![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)
Pursuing Voice
Senior Shares Passion for Performing
Photo Courtesy of Nathan Wright
Posing in character, senior Nathan Wright helps to promote the musical, “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” on Jan. 17. “I love performing and I basically never left the stage for this production,” Wright said, “It was really a dream come true to be able to perform with such incredible people for such incredible people. The whole experience was life changing.”
May 21, 2020
From the moment he could sing, get on stage, be the class clown, or catch people’s attention, senior Nathan Wright has been passionate about performing.
Wright has performed on many stages, but his most frequent is the CPHS performing arts center auditorium stage. As a member of choir and theatre, he has performed in choir concerts and “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder,” along with many other productions this year.
“The adrenaline rush from being on stage and vulnerable in front of all those people is something like nothing else on the planet, and I live for it,” Wright said.
Wright is planning on majoring in vocal performance at Texas Tech University and is planning to pursue musical theatre outside of school.
“I have never understood someone going through college classes and college debt to do something that doesn’t make them happy,” Wright said. “It sounds cliche, but I won’t ever have to work a day in my life because I love what I’m going to be doing with it.”
Wright said his memories from his high school experiences will follow him along his journey. One of his favorite memories was junior year, when the choir was invited to perform as one of the five selected choirs in all of Texas for TMEA in San Antonio. The choir had to sing five different songs with a high level of difficulty. Rehearsing began the first month of the school year all the way through February of 2019. The students rehearsed all together once a week until then.
“The start of the learning process was brutal, but later I found joy in the difficulty of the music, and now I have greater appreciation for more difficult pieces,” Wright said. “This event was huge for me on my path to pursuing voice.”
The audience’s approach to the performance is what led to a realization to Wright, he said. Wright explained the emotions that followed after the performance.
“The warmth, peace and happiness that came with that performance is something that I have tried to recreate since then, and is something I will continue to try to recreate,” Wright said.
Choir was a big part of Wright’s course to find his passion.
“The biggest parts of being in a successful choir are the relationships from the directors to the students, and the relationships between the students themselves,” Wright said. “The choir family I have at Cedar Park is unlike any family.”
