Just after the summer session ended in late June, Heart O’ the Hills camper Sydney Sutton sent this photo to the camp’s director, Jane Ragsdale, who was killed in the July 4 flooding in Kerr County, Texas.
Erika Sutton
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Erika Sutton
Jane Ragsdale spent her summers by the Guadalupe, the very river that killed her a week ago today in the catastrophic July Fourth flood. Mention her name in Kerrville, Texas, this week, and folks tend to do two things: tear up and smile.
“I mean I can’t tell you how many people, acquaintances of mine say, ‘My dear, dear friend died.’ And then they said, ‘Did you know Jane Ragsdale?’ and I say, ‘Yeah, I did,’ ” said Karen Taylor, who lives in nearby Hunt, Texas. For her, Ragsdale was West Kerr County personified.
“Everybody’s friendly here, but she embodied that friendliness and generosity and love for others. I just can’t imagine life without her,” Taylor said.
Ragsdale, who was in her late 60s, did a lot of things, but she’s best known as the owner and director of Heart O’ the Hills camp for girls. She was born into the business.
Jane Ragsdale ran the Heart O’ the Hills camp for girls in Kerr County, Texas. The camp was between sessions when the deluge hit. The only person killed there was Ragsdale.
Kerrville Daily Times
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Kerrville Daily Times
Her family bought a boys’ camp, Camp Stewart in 1966, the year Ragsdale turned 9. They bought Heart O’ the Hills about a decade later. Ragsdale helped run it from the start. By 1988, she was in charge.
Unlike Camp Mystic, the girls camp where at least 27 perished when the deluge hit, Heart O’ the Hills was between sessions. The only person killed there was Ragsdale.
“I’ve never in my life met someone like Jane,” said Kathy Simmons, who was a good friend of Ragsdale’s.
Simmons was at Heart O’ the Hills picking up her granddaughter just the week before the flood, on the last night the camp was open.
“We had a candlelight service on the river at 9 p.m., and it was so beautiful. There were prayers and there were songs,” Simmons said. “Jane always led the children in songs. And every one of those girls and those counselors absolutely idolized her.”
After Heart O’ the Hills camper Sydney Sutton sent a photo of herself to Jane Ragsdale, the camp director wrote this letter back to Sydney.
Erika Sutton
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Erika Sutton
The summer camps on the Guadalupe River in Kerr County are institutions. Generations of girls and boys go through them, often forming life-long attachments. Simmons considered Ragsdale the heart and soul of her camp, both spiritual leader and educator.
“I mean, Jane taught these girls how to change a tire, how to ride a horse, how to swim, how to shoot a gun, archery, cooking. I mean, the necessities of life,” Simmons said.
In the off-season, when she wasn’t running the camp, Ragsdale often traveled to Guatemala, where she volunteered as an interpreter and a project organizer. It was mission work she started doing when she was 19 and studying journalism. She was a badass. But she was also about the sweetest person in town.
“Jane was one of the most genuine, kind, honest people and very intelligent, very warm,” recalls Mindy Wendele, president and CEO of the Kerrville Area Chamber of Commerce. “She had a smile that you knew Jane Ragsdale was smiling at you.”
Wendele grew up with Ragsdale, who she describes as a real go-getter: deeply involved in the Chamber of Commerce, a board member of the local liberal arts college, a class leader in high school.
“Anytime that we were out with Jane and her family at Heart O’ the Hills, we had just a fabulous time, just fabulous memories out there,” Wendele said.
Now, with some of the camps and almost all of the riverfront in ruins, Kerr County faces a monumental clean-up and rebuilding effort.
Another reason to miss Jane Ragsdale.
“Oh, she would be out there volunteering. She would be out there clearing property,” Simmons said. “She would have her boots on, her gloves on, she would be helping every dang soul that needed to be helped.”
So the flood took one of Kerr County’s most capable citizens, but Ragsdale’s influence on the community and the girls who came through Heart O’ the Hills camp is going to last a long time.
