After years of searching for peace and a place to call "home", Ruth Ann Evans has created a loving family and built a wonderful career in the beautiful town of Fredericksburg. To see her accomplishments and talk with her now, you would think this woman had it all figured out from day one. But if you knew her past, you would realize it wasn’t that easy.

Back in March of 1985, a young fourteen-year-old girl left her mother and brother and came to the Hill Country Youth Ranch from the big city of Houston. Ruth Ann had been in several other placements before finding her home at the Ranch.

"The Hill Country Youth Ranch outrated them all," Ruth Ann proudly stated recently as she remembered her life here at the Ranch. "It was a strict but loving environment, just what I needed. I remember the primitive campground where our entire cabin would pitch a tent and we would sleep in our sleeping bags on the ground. We lit a campfire and everything." But most of all, Ruth Ann remembered and looked forward to group night.*

"We’d get together in our small groups first, and then come together as one big group. We were smaller then, so Gary ran it. I remember a section of the meeting called "planetball" where one person stood up and put their ‘life on the line’ as Gary used to call it."

She went on to explain, "You know, you stood up in front of everyone and if you had a problem and wanted to talk about it, you could. Being a victim of sexual and physical abuse from age 6, I was petrified about talking about myself with anyone."

"But I had a problem with stealing, and that forced me into the hot seat," she sheepishly admitted. "So one evening, I played planetball and stood up and talked about it — what went on inside when I stole, the missing value I was searching for, the last time I did it — and you know what, I got in touch with a part of me I hadn’t known in years. It worked! I felt so much better and I haven’t stolen since. I don’t know if "planetball" worked for everybody, but it sure worked for me!"

Ruth Ann left HCYR in the summer of 1987. She was a few credits shy of graduating from high school and chose to take her GED equivalency test. She passed.

In 1990, she started working for the Pizza Hut Corporation in Kerrville and then transferred to the restaurant in Fredericksburg. She has been with the company for 8 years and was promoted to manager this past spring, running the Pizza Hut in Fredericksburg with a staff of 20.

Ruth Ann is married to Wilbert Hazelett of Fredericksburg, and they have four children — sons BJ, Donald, and Douglas, and daughter Tasha, the family‘s youngest. She has been back to the Ranch several times to visit and thinks of the Ranch as part of her family.

Ruth Ann has worked hard to get where she is today. "I don’t know where I’d be now without the Ranch," she lamented, "maybe even in prison. With the path I was on . . . " Imagination can only guess where that path would have led without the Christian guidance and teachings imparted by the staff and Gary Priour, founder of the Ranch. It’s stories like Ruth Ann’s that confirm our beliefs and keep us going through troubled times.

For the children that are here now, Ruth Ann imparts a bit of friendly advice to them. "Make the best of what you have now. Use the Ranch to the fullest extent to learn the values of your life and to better yourself."

After talking with Ruth Ann about her life then and now, it’s plain to see she has heeded her own advice.