![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)
Senior Spotlight: Alex Allen
Photo by Luke Williamson
May 21, 2018
On the first Monday of every month, senior Alex Allen sprints from soccer practice to the lecture hall to lead the National Honor Society meeting as their president. Over the past four years of high school, Allen has been no stranger to balancing her involvements as she has taken 23 Pre-AP and AP classes, led honor societies and played on the varsity girls soccer team.
Between everything she does, Allen says that a big part of her decision to pursue academia is because of her love of learning.
“I think it stems from curiosity,” Allen said. “I’m interested in everything about everything, whether that’s the evolution of language or biology, or astrophysics. The whole universe is just so fascinating to me and I want to know as much about it as I can.”
While she currently serves as president of Rho Kappa Honor Society, vice president of Key Club, secretary of The Locker, student vice president of PTSA and student body vice president in Student Council, Allen says that leading did not always come easily to her. Allen says that she remembers it being difficult to pre-record her student council campaign speech for the Wolfcast during her freshman year.
“I freaked out, and I was just talking to a room of four people,” Allen said. “But now I do NHS and there’s like 200 people sometimes. I think I’ve definitely evolved as a leader over time, and I think more of that is gaining confidence and realizing that people aren’t there to judge you. If you’re a leader, you have a job to fulfill, you have a role that you’re in charge of, and you’re helping other people by leading.”
Allen says her confidence has improved dramatically since her freshman year and that being open to leadership positions is vital to developing these skills.
“A lot of that just come from having the role,” Allen said. “Having any kind of officer role, you get more and more experience dealing with larger groups of people until eventually you’re just fine talking to a bunch of people.”
When it comes to balancing all of her various activities, Allen finds it beneficial to avoid being too hard on herself.
“If you are involved in so many things, you’re going to have to accept that fact that you’re going to miss something some time,” Allen said. “You’re going to have to accept the fact that you can’t give your entire being to everything you do.”
Allen will be attending the University of Texas at Austin in the fall and will be majoring in journalism and partaking in the Plan II honors program. This is a liberal arts honors program exclusive to UT with a unique curriculum.
Starting at a new school next year, Allen says that wherever she goes, it is important to value her own successes.
“Stop comparing your successes to other people successes,” Allen said. “Just because someone is successful in this or that, doesn’t mean you’re any less successful in anything you’ve done.”
