![Taking a breath as he raises his arm up and out of the water, sophomore Kaden Padilla swims the 500 freestyle at the UIL state meet on Feb. 21-22. Padilla placed 10th overall and second in the consolation final in the event, dropping two seconds. “My family was there, so being able to drop time for them was really special,” Padilla said. “It was awesome [finding out I advanced to the consolation finals]. I wasn’t expecting it, and I was very surprised. My parents being there definitely made me a lot happier knowing they got to see me swim in finals.” Photo by Skyler King.](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/kaden-padilla.jpg)
![Throwing the ball, sophomore shortstop and third baseman Hudson Cuevas completes a play to first base at the scrimmage against Round Rock on Feb. 4. Installation of new turf on the fields has relocatedthe team to practicing on the grass fields and at a batting cage center off of Lakeline called D-Bat. “Our players have attacked this challenge,” Head Coach Ben Huffman said. “We’re just having to shift locations from a day to day basis. [But], the boys come out and wherever and whatever we’re doing they just try to get better every day.” Photo by Alyssa Fox](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Hudson-1200x800.jpg)
![Meeting together on the field, the girls celebrate their victory after beating Liberty Hill in the first round of districts. They won 2-0, continuing their undefeated streak. “Playing soccer just takes all of your stress away, [and]
it's a good mental break from school and family,” Pack said. “I go and I forget literally everything that's going on because I'm only focused on soccer, so I continue to play because it's a good outlet.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/soccer.jpg)
![Standing over the Backwash Holding Tanks, a LISD apprentice clenches onto the fire hose to clean off built-up debris. She is currently an apprentice at the Water Treatment Plant, supervised under Zeke Gil. “Our intern has been good,” Gil said. “She's come in and picked up our labs and our day to day operations pretty well. So I think [the apprenticeship] is a good thing.” Photo Courtesy of Eddie Aguilar](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/water-1-1200x800.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)
![Lined up along the wall, the class banners from previous graduating classes are displayed in the library. The banners will be moved to the cafeteria, but librarian Keri Burns said she enjoyed the school spirit they brought to the library. “For visitors and non-students, [the banners] are just a nice glimpse to get a little piece of what it was like at that time or what was important to them,” Burns said. “It's like a little visual time capsule.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/banners.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 the support team sits and poses for a photo in the cafeteria with the counseling team they eagerly wait to start their day. "We [all] seem to be a team, I get up every day and there's days where I don't want to go to work today, but I'm thankful that I have a job and I'm blessed to have what I have," Christopherson said. Photo Courtesy of Julie Weltens.](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/AF9E8470-10D7-4C91-BF28-EC8F86BAB66C-1200x852.jpeg)
![Officer Stephanie Cash is in her second year as an SRO at CPHS. “Seeing [students] grow over the years has been kind of cool,” Officer Cash said. “Freshmen that [are] all over the place and then in the next couple of years get a little more squared away and go to class and do work and start thinking about the future. Being a part of a student's growth is the best way to measure my success as an SRO.” Photo Courtesy of Cedar Park Police Department's PIO, Alicia Gallagher.](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/CPHS-SRO-900x1200.jpg)
![Three defenders try to stop senior point guard Hope Edwards before the ball leaves her hands. The girls basketball team faced Liberty Hill on Feb 21, losing 58-40. “[My season was] definitely bittersweet,” Edwards said. It's definitely sad [because] I'm gonna miss all my teammates, my coaches and just the whole CP environment.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/julia-128-1200x800.jpg)
![Posing with their trophy, the varsity cheer team takes a picture following their sixth place performance at the Universal Cheerleading Associtation’s National High School Cheerleading Competition. This was the highest the team has placed in school history. “[Breaking the record] is like more than I could ask for, so I’m really proud of them,” Head Cheer Coach Nadira King said. “It’s so exciting because now they have the confidence and they’ve had a little taste of something good. I think that will be good for our future as a program.” Photo Courtesy of CPHS Cheer](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/cheer.jpg)
If you told 10 year old me that my favorite YouTube family was not only broken apart, but that one of the members of the family is in prison for child abuse, I probably would have laughed at you. Who would’ve ever guessed that this seemingly perfect and influential family was actually hiding something so sinister behind the lens? That is the unfortunate truth for the former YouTube channel “8 Passengers.”
The “8 Passengers” channel, run by the notorious Ruby Franke, started out as a vlogging channel that followed the Franke family throughout their daily lives. After years of vlogging their seemingly normal lives, Ruby Franke was arrested in August 2023 for four counts of child abuse according to Forbes. After one of the two youngest Franke kids, with duct tape around their legs and clearly emaciated, escaped their house and told a neighbor about the situation at hand, police went to visit the house and found the other kid locked in a room. With this family being pretty popular on the internet, the case was heavily scrutinized online, with countless conspiracy theories about what may have happened flooding social media.
On Feb. 27, Hulu released a documentary called “Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke.” The three episode documentary goes through interviews with the two oldest Franke kids (who are both adults) and Ruby’s husband, Kevin Franke, in addition to showing unseen footage from their YouTube videos. After months of waiting to hear from their perspectives, I was ready to hear what they had to say.
The documentary started out by describing how they even began the YouTube channel, with Kevin explaining how quickly Ruby became obsessed with fame. He described how she would always be filming every little thing, and how these daily little vlogs quickly became a way for her to exploit her children for money. There was also unseen footage shown of Ruby switching up her personality for the camera, which was probably one of the most shocking things to see visually.
After years of family vlogging, Ruby began to start making videos with former counselor and YouTuber, Jodi Hildebrandt. The documentary goes into detail about how they even became involved with each other and how they started to get into business together. Eventually, Ruby ended up abandoning the 8 Passengers YouTube channel, and fully went into business with Jodi. During this time, speculations about where Kevin went and even the morality of their advice were flooding the internet. The documentary goes into detail about how she gradually drove Kevin out of the house, which was definitely another part that appalled me, especially because most of this wasn’t shared on the internet.
I would say that the most surprising part of the documentary was just how brainwashed everyone was, both religiously and psychologically. One of the main excuses that Ruby used for abusing her kids was the fact that she believed that they were possessed. Jodi also thought that she was possessed herself, and that there was going to be some kind of second coming. Kevin was brainwashed into thinking that Ruby was just doing what was best for the kids, and even her own kids were brainwashed into thinking that the abuse was normal. This was definitely one of the most mind-boggling things about the situation in my opinion, because I just can’t even fathom how Kevin or even the kids could ever trust anyone again, and I can’t stop thinking about how much trauma each person will have.
Now a lot of people, including myself, are questioning Kevin’s involvement in this. When the kids were found tied up, he technically wasn’t around at the time because Ruby had kicked him out, so he wasn’t even tried. But his innocence is still being questioned by people following this case because he did mention knowing about Ruby’s obsession with filming everything and how he could see that she was crossing a line by exploiting her kids. The interviewers even asked him if he still loved Ruby after everything that she had done, and he said that he did. In my personal opinion, I think that is messed up, and I do feel like he needs to be tried for at least neglecting his kids. The fact that he stood by Ruby’s side and didn’t defend his own children speaks volumes to me on his “innocence.”
Overall, I believe that this documentary is so interesting to watch. It’s short, it gets right to the point and it reveals things about this family that I had so closely followed for so many years that I couldn’t even believe were true. I definitely recommend this documentary for anyone, even people that didn’t follow this family prior to this, because it’s honestly just so fascinating to hear what her husband’s perspective was, and also her own kids.
I give this documentary a 9/10.
