![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)
Thousands of colleges. Tens of thousands of dollars. Over a million scholarships. There are many students who are anxiously awaiting scholarship and college acceptance letters that will determine where their futures will lead. Fortunately, after being accepted to the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) scholarship program, senior Nathan Rechtfertig has everything taken care of and he can spend the rest of his senior year excited for the future that awaits him.
The NROTC is a four-year scholarship program that provides full tuition, room and board and stipends. Along with this, after four years of school, you will automatically be an officer in the military. It is very competitive, with only about 1,200 recipients out of over 5,000 applicants. Wrestling Coach Richard Eckley, who has coached Rechtfertig for the past year, said he is very proud of Rechtfertig for receiving this scholarship.
“[NROTC] is a national competition,” Eckley said. “I don’t know how many people get this scholarship every year. This is my 15th year coaching in Texas, and Nathan is the first kid I’ve ever coached that’s gotten this.”
Because there are so few applicants who receive an NROTC scholarship, Rechtfertig said that he had to put in a lot of effort to make himself stand out in his application.
“[I did] a lot of extracurricular activities, especially leadership activities,” he said. “In wrestling, I was captain for a couple years, and then I founded a chess club back at my old high school which helped out a lot. [I earned] a lot of community hours.”
After putting in his best effort to receive the scholarship, Rechtfertig said that he looks forward to what is ahead for him.
“I can’t tell right now if I want to serve four years or more after that [because] it’s too far to tell,” Rechtfertig said. “But I’m looking forward to the brotherly bond that you get. [The people you serve with] are going to be your brothers for life, so that’s going to be a great experience.”
Eckley said that he believes Rechtfertig to be very deserving of this scholarship and is excited for him to have experiences similar to his own while he served in the Marine Corps. Eckley said that without his experience serving, he wouldn’t be who he is today.
“After I graduated high school, I was kind of directionless,” Eckley said. “I joined the Marines, and I don’t know where I would be today without it. [I am very glad] that I have the privilege of coaching young men and women that want to not only follow that path, but also be a leader in that particular path. I’m incredibly proud of it and I feel lucky that I get a chance to be around young men and women like that.”
Because of the NROTC scholarship, Rechtfertig will have the opportunity to automatically be an officer in the military. Eckley said that this is a huge honor and that he is very proud of Rechtfertig for receiving this opportunity.
“Being a leader, being a representative of the United States of America all over the world, being a representative of your community within the military, it’s a big deal,” Eckley said. “And he’ll have no problem rising to the challenge. I just want to emphasize how special he is for getting this honor.”
