Echo Hill Ranch is a summer ranch camp of about 400 acres (1.6 km2) in the Texas Hill Country.
Echo Hill Ranch
The ranch was founded in 1953 by Dr. S. Thomas Friedman and Minnie Samet Friedman. It is located south of
Kerrville near Medina. Echo Hill was founded as a noncompetitive, child-centered ranch camp for boys and girls ages 6–14. It operated from the summer of 1953 through the summer of 2013 as a private camp for generations of children by the Friedman family. Campers and staff were mostly from Texas though a few came from international locations. Minnie Friedman died in 1985 but her family and close friends, Floyd and Joan Potter, continued the tradition of running the summer camp. The Friedmans were active in the American Camping Association (ACA), even setting the standards for what became best practices in summer camping. The staff taught children to swim, ride horses, play a number of different sports, enjoy arts and crafts, performing arts, camping, and things such as archery and riflery. Teens were taught leadership development and how to become staff members themselves. At the time of Dr. Tom Friedman's death in 2002, it was decided that Roger, the middle child of the founders and resident of Maryland would become the director. Roger and his wife Roselynn (Roz) ran the camp, largely unchanged, for the next 10 summers before making the decision to shut it down. [1] On July 24, 2013 the camp announced via their Facebook page that it would not reopen for summer of 2014.
Tom and Minnie's youngest child, Marcie Friedman, is accredited by the ACA as a camp director. While she has been working for the state department for decades, she has been able to make new connections with military families and other interested parties to recreate Echo Hill Ranch as a place for Gold Star families (children who have lost a parent in the military) to come to camp, tuition free, with volunteer staff and operated by generous donations given by organizations and individuals interested in supporting such families. The inaugural year of Echo Hill Ranch Gold Star Camp was planned for the summer of 2020 but was instead pushed to 2021 because of COVID-19 concerns.[2]
Echo Hill Gold Star Camp attracts children from all over the country and volunteers, mostly military, assist in the upkeep of the facility and the large number of responsibilities associated in running a summer camp.
Echo Hill Ranch was the residence of Texas musician, writer, and gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman until his death on June 26, 2024.[3][4][5]
