Every year, the events, experiences and memories of Fort Hill for us Starnes family is different. Some years we have had the entire family stay for the full weekend – from Friday night through Sunday afternoon. Other years hardly anyone could come, as we experienced with the years of and after COVID-19. We’ve seen babies born and families get bigger. We’ve seen some family break apart. We have seen kids grow up and move into adulthood. But every year we get to focus on family.

Fort Hill is a camp that is sponsored by some churches of Christ and donors who try to get kids away from home and to be focused on being with new friends and focused on God, Christ and the church. While that is the focus during the summer, in the spring, fall and winter, the camp is available to anyone who pays for access to the property. Judy Starnes – my mom and many of the kids’ grandma and now great-grandma – has pretty much funded our camp experience over the years on her own. Even when we’ve tried to pay for the weekend with her, she resists.

During camp times, mom has been one of the cooks at Fort Hill for many years and occasionally she has been a kid’s counselor or cabin counselor. After a few years of this mom started renting the camp out the week after Christmas for all of us to come in for food, laughs, conversations, card games, board games, puzzles, Xbox PlayStation, Nintendo 64, and Wii games! The camp has a very big insulated metal building with heat that has a full-length basketball court in it, so when we all feel like it, there is a lot of basketball going on! Most of the Starnes kids, especially the boys were tall and played basketball for school teams. So that always unfolded at camp.

• One year we had about 8-9″ of snow overnight and we spent much of the next day sledding! It was fantastic.

There are not many rules for camp. It is so far from local cell phone towers, that most of us can’t send or receive messages on our phones. So we truly disconnect from everything! Now it seems many of the family with AT&T can get or send messages but not most of the rest of us. Normally that is fine, except when your favorite college or NFL team is playing big football games and you want to hear!

This year, the only ones who came down to camp and stayed on Friday night were Roger and Judy (mom and dad), JB, Mason, Tucker, Patty and me. Most of them had made it down to camp by 2:00 pm. Patty and I didn’t get there until around 5:00-6:00, then they were fetching pizzas and mom made her beef and noodles.

The fireplace is always one of he best places at camp, and normally that is dad’s self-elected role to keep the fires burning all weekend. Camp managers, Satch and Regina Cornett, have their camp manager home across the street from the camp. They have started leaving the John Deere Gator out for dad knowing how much he likes to look for firewood. If we weren’t gathered around the fireplace, some of us shot basketball, or took photos and played cards (like me).

The next morning, some of the group had gone on a donut run at one of the very popular Amish Bakeries near camp and brought some back for breakfast. Around noon family began showing up! Cassidy and Ian were there as was Travis, Julie, and Kaleigh. Later Casey, Sherry, and Riley showed up. Then Levi, Lauren, Maddie, Alex (Maddie’s boyfriend), and Parker. Carrie showed up later after trying to join us and keep up with Ben’s condition.

We didn’t get to have a lot of time with one another, compared to previous years, but we did have most of the day for that! Lots of conversation, memories, and sharing of food, sports, and being together. It is one of the best things we all get to do each year, even when it is hard to make time.

We had a great time with the gift exchange, the meal(s), and the basketball, baseball, and conversations at the athletic building. I shot ball with several Friday night and Saturday morning, but still was not feeling well enough to play ball on Saturday, so I just watched like many others. Dad finally found the breakers to get the heaters back on! That was nice. Our time at camp is when most of the place is shut down for the winter so there is a lot we have to restart.

My kids, Katheryn (Fry) and James, with my son-in-law and first grandson, Royal and Rayland (Fry), could not be with us again this year as they live in Idaho and that is too far to make an expensive trip by airplane in to see us.

One thing that mom, Judy Starnes, likes to do most when camping or doing our Starnes Fam Christmas camp, is to hike nearby Fort Hill. Partly due to many of us having colds and the weather, we did not get to do that again this year, but we did get to meet for our Sunday morning worship service in the dining hall. Roger Sr. (aka pappaw) gave the lesson and I lead songs. Roger Sr., Judy, Patty, Tuck and I (Roger Jr.) attended and enjoyed the start of the day. Then we left.

Here is a gallery of images with captions of the photos…

Not pictured or in attendance this year:

• Katheryn Starnes-Fry
• James Starnes
• Royal Fry
• Rayland Fry

But here is the rest of the family this year…