A TCU alumna was a counselor at Camp Mystic when the deadly floods devastated Central
Texas this summer. This is her story about the places that shape us and the experiences
that change us.
Nights at Camp Mystic always had a leisurely routine for counselor Caroline Cutrona
’24 (’25 M.Ed.) and the 14 little campers in her cabin.
She read them the daily devotional. She led them in bedtime prayers. And then she
tucked them into their beds.
The devotional on July 3, 2025: Joy Choosers.
“It was talking about the girls choosing joy even in the really hard parts of life,”
Cutrona said. “It is not always going to be happy, sunshine, rainbows. It’s a choice
we have to make about the way we are going to live out our lives even when it’s not.”
The girls went to bed talking about how to handle the bad days. Then they woke up
to the worst day of their young lives. As they slept up the hill at the Cypress Lake
portion of camp, the Guadalupe River portion of the camp experienced catastrophic
flooding that swept away cabins, necessitated harrowing escapes and left many of their
friends and fellow campers unaccounted for. A similar scene played out across the
Texas Hill Country that holiday weekend.
Cutrona and her campers saw the destruction firsthand as they were driven out by the
game warden around 6 p.m. on July 4. And in the days ahead, they would learn that
27 Mystic campers were among the 130 people who had died.
“I didn’t think it was real at first,” Cutrona said. “I grew up a Mystic camper. I
was in Giggle Box, which flooded. I was in Jumble House, which flooded. I was in Hangout,
which flooded. And those are some of the best memories of my life. I grew up there.
There and TCU.”
This is one Horned Frog’s story about the places that shape us and the experiences
that change us, of balancing joy and grief, and of finding purpose in the aftermath
of the unimaginable.
“TCU and Mystic have shaped and formed me into who I am today,” Cutrona said. “I have
to trust that God kept me here for a reason.”
‘That was home’
Cutrona graduated from TCU in May, wrapping up what she describes as five wonderful
and challenging years. She had earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the College
of Education and had committed to going to Spain in August to begin teaching English.
On graduation day, she wrote on Instagram: “Got my Masters degree!! Now it’s time
to learn how to flamencoooo!!!”
Her plans for the summer were simple: Do what she loved, with people she loved, in
places she loved, before leaving to jumpstart her life.
This naturally brought her back to Camp Mystic.
The sleep-away camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River is beloved by generations
of Texans, including Cutrona. She spent her summers from kindergarten through high
school racing canoes and singing songs as a Mystic camper. She returned for another
three years as a counselor. She hadn’t planned on a fourth but “something pulled me
back.”
“I’m thinking I’m just ready for some peace and happiness and fully being here before
my whole life, excitedly, gets changed, and I move to Spain, and I start teaching and all of these dreams I have been working on for a long time
come true,” Cutrona said. “So I wanted to spend the summer back at Mystic because
that was home.”
When the rains came on the night of July 3, Cutrona thought nothing of it. She had
come to Mystic to get recertified as a lifeguard in May and was staying down in the
flats when a heavy rainstorm came through, thunder and lightning crashing all night.
“I remember thinking, ‘This is just like May. It is strong but I know we will be fine
because we were fine before,” Cutrona said. “It wasn’t until much later …”
Cypress Lake was added to Camp Mystic in 2020 to allow more girls to attend. It is
situated up the hill, away from the banks of the Guadalupe where Cutrona had gone
when she was growing up — and just far enough away that nobody knew what was happening.
Cutrona, as is policy, did not have her phone and was told only to keep her little
campers in their cabin. The girls were later asked to gather clothes for Guadalupe
campers evacuated to the higher Cypress ground. They did not know the full extent
of the situation at Mystic until later.
“The director of Cypress Lake comes by and says, ‘Counselors outside. I need to talk
to you.’ And she says, ‘What happened last night was catastrophic,’ and she started
crying …” Cutrona said, her voice trailing off.
The rest of it is jumbled for Cutrona.
She remembers hearing that girls were unaccounted for, and camp executive director
Dick Eastland was missing. She remembers counselors dropping to their knees around
her, voices calling out “what about …” with the names of their friends at Guadalupe
hanging in the air. She remembers leading a prayer. She remembers going back to her
cabin and putting on a brave face because the girls were too young to be told all
the unknowns. She remembers being driven out by the game warden and being overcome
with sadness.
“I could not even recognize the camp. Everything was obliterated,” Cutrona said. “For
a long time, even still, I have to think, ‘Is it OK to be sad or upset?’ Because I
wasn’t even in the middle of the flooding.”
Since arriving back in Fort Worth, Cutrona has been asked repeatedly what it was like
and how she is doing.
“What I tell people is, yes, the darkness of that night is so real and so heavy, but
the light does shine in darkness, and the darkness will never overcome it,” Cutrona
said. “That’s what it says on all the Camp Mystic signs.
“Seeing those signs gives me chills, and seeing the green ribbons everywhere gives
me hope.”
Deeply Shaped by TCU
Sonny Dykes, TCU head football coach, and his players wore green ribbons to Big 12
Media Days and joined college football teams from around the state in wearing helmet
stickers. And if you wonder if those gestures mean anything, Cutrona says they do.
“I grew up trick-or-treating in the dean’s office at TCU. I had Easter egg hunts in
the field outside the BLUU. I ran onto the football field with the players,” Cutrona
said. “I grew up here and was deeply, deeply shaped by the spirit here and the teachers
here.”
Cutrona’s path to a master’s in special education actually started in kindergarten.
“I was in kindergarten, and they said, ‘I’m sorry we can’t teach her. She needs to
go somewhere,’” Cutrona said. “So my parents sent me to Starpoint. When I went there,
that is where things started to change.”
TCU’s College of Education works with two campus laboratory schools — KinderFrogs
School and Starpoint School. KinderFrogs is an early intervention school for children
with developmental delays, and Starpoint helps students with learning differences
like dyslexia, dysgraphia, ADHD, dyscalculia and beyond. Cutrona attended from first
through sixth grade. She then transferred to a private school, and when the time came to choose a college, she knew where she wanted to go and what
she wanted to study.
“The teachers know how to transform the kids who go there,” Cutrona said. “I don’t
know where I’d be if I didn’t go to Starpoint. I chose special education (for my master’s)
because I have a special connection toward that, and I wanted to give back.”
Talk to anybody at Starpoint and the College of Education, and they will tell you
Cutrona already is on that path. They describe her as bubbly and optimistic, kind
and idealistic.
“Caroline personifies the TCU mission,” said Jan Lacina, the Bezos Family Foundation
Endowed Chair in Early Childhood Education and senior associate dean for research,
graduate studies and strategic partnerships. “She leads with integrity and courage,
while serving with compassion. We are so proud of Caroline’s journey through our programs
— from Starpoint School student to earning a bachelor’s in our early childhood to
grade six program — and then to earning a master’s in special education. She exemplifies
the very best of the College of Education.”
The peace that passes understanding
What Cutrona knows now is that survival comes with both joy and guilt, with sadness
and hope, and with a renewed commitment to make a difference in the lives of others.
“You can hold both of those,” Cutrona said, “hold them both in your hands: that utter
sadness, anger and confusion in one hand and also have the hope and peace that surpasses
all understanding in the other hand.
“The more personal, internal thought is, I am like, ‘OK God, you kept me here. I’m
going to live my life as best I can.”