A decade ago, Reba’s Ranch House was bursting at the seams with housing hundreds of vulnerable guests annually. Each individual needed a safe place to stay while their loved one was hospitalized. Thus began our partnership with international design firm HKS as they designed the new Reba’s Ranch House in 2010, the one we currently use to host 850 guests each year.

Running such an operation of love requires regular board meetings and also offices for the Texoma Health Foundation (THF) which owns and operates Reba’s Ranch House. THF cares for several nonprofits doing good work in our community, and for individuals who find themselves in difficult circumstances at local healthcare facilities in Grayson and Fannin counties in North Texas and Bryan and Marshall counties in Southern Oklahoma. 

When THF needed more space to operate, Reba’s Ranch House once again turned to HKS.

Citizen HKS — A Public Interest Design Initiative 

Reba’s Ranch House and THF partnered with HKS once again, this time through the firm’s public interest design initiative, Citizen HKS Project. This opened the way for a new 1,700 square feet space that not only benefits Reba’s Ranch House but numerous non-profits in our community. The meeting room Citizen HKS designed has become a community space for nonprofits throughout the area.

“We had identified this as an important community need,” says Marilyn Bice, director at Reba’s Ranch House. “And within two and a half months, it was full. We have meetings in the mornings, at noon, at night. And we have all of our THF and Reba’s Ranch House board meetings there, too.”

On the porch

Read the Design Story

What a privilege it has been to work with HKS through the years and on this functional, beautiful new space! Please enjoy a special post about the expansion written by Candace Goodman, a senior designer at HKS Dallas. Discover the lessons she learned and the love she shared during the project: Click here to read the full story.

By Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer

A guest trudged down the hallway at Reba’s Ranch House. She was coming in from the hospital where her mother had just passed. 

Something hung from the doorknob to the room where she was staying, a note with a Bible verse from Psalms. At that moment, the card with the scripture verse was what she needed.

 A few years later, this guest returned to Reba’s Ranch House when her mother-in-law was hospitalized. The guest went to the front desk and found Jeri Carosella, the one who had hung the card on her doorknob years before. She expressed to Jeri what it had meant to her.

“Her sister took her mother’s robe and made her a pillow,” Jeri says. “She keeps that card in the pocket of the pillow. She said she will have it the rest of her life. You never know who you’re touching, even with something as simple as writing out a message.”

Jeri has worked at Reba’s Ranch House since 2013. In those days, her husband — who held degrees as an aircraft engineer, aerospace engineer, and was a Ph.D. Nuclear Fusion Scientist — had a full schedule with volunteering for a senior exercise class. 

“I would tease him by saying, ‘You have all those degrees, and you married a simple high school teacher,’” Jeri recalls with a laugh. “He responded by saying that without teachers, there could be no engineers or scientists.”

Jeri sought the Lord to uncover what she should do for His Kingdom in the next season of her life. She believes He led her to Reba’s Ranch House. 

Serving in Guest Relations, she prays for people, writes poems and scriptures on cards to hang on their doors, and gives them hugs when they need it so desperately.

“Everybody who comes through this door is going through a tribulation in their life,” Jeri says. “If they come through this door, somebody is in the hospital.”

Jeri has faced her own tragedies. Among them, her husband of 31 years passed at the end of 2018. But he loved the work she did at Reba’s Ranch House and wanted her to continue being a compassionate prayer warrior. She is known as, “The Ranch House Angel.”

With Jeri’s shift starting in the mornings, she greets guests as they come and go from the hospital. They sometimes congregate around the front desk, where her arms are always open to offer a hug. She calls it “God’s medicine.”

“When you give somebody a hug, you don’t know what it’s doing for them, what they’re going through, how much they needed that hug,” she says.

Every day, Jeri puts on her most beautiful accessory for work: her smile.

“I believe I am where I’m supposed to be, walking in the plan the Lord has for me,” Jeri adds.

Countless guests, some experiencing the worst circumstances in their life, have been touched by this Ranch House Angel.

By Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer

Barry Roberson drove his golf cart up to the lonely pine tree in a field behind his house. Grief from the passing of his father was still fresh, and after a visit to the doctor’s, Barry was facing his own mortality. It was time for a serious talk with God.

Barry’s father had been a faithful man, going on church visitations every week even when his voice was taken by ALS. It wasn’t until after his passing that people told Barry they went to church because his dad visited them.

But Barry was aggravated with God that day under the lonely pine. His doctor diagnosed him with Parkinson’s disease and progressive supranuclear palsy. The doctor said Barry was terminal, with no more than ten years left. Likely less than four in his advanced condition.

“God, I don’t understand,” Barry recalled his prayer. “You made the most faithful man I knew die a terrible death. Now I’ve lost my job and my ability to drive. I wish You’d tell me what You think I’m going to do for the next four years.”

Barry sat under that pine tree, waiting for an answer. He got one.

Build dollhouses.

“I said something like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’” Barry recalled.

Halfway home on the golf cart, Barry stopped. If that was God speaking to him, maybe it was a mistake to leave. He went back and continued the conversation.

“God, You know where my heart is, and You know what’s going to happen to me. I don’t, so I’m going to do whatever You tell me.”

Build dollhouses.

“I thought that was the stupidest thing,” Barry says. “But I said, ‘Okay.’”

As it turned out, building dollhouses was indeed God’s answer for Barry’s life. His doctor encouraged him to start immediately, that it would be excellent mental and physical therapy.

Barry’s wife, Dawn, was instantly on board. Though Barry had built his daughter a dollhouse years before, he didn’t know what to do with new ones. Dawn gave him clear direction.

“My wife is my partner in everything,” Barry says. “She’s my driver and my biggest cheerleader. She takes care of me. But one day I told Dawn, ‘I can’t imagine doing this for four years.’”

Dawn told him he needed a cause, and suggested he build a dollhouse for a little girl at their church who had cancer. 

“I built her a house and the feeling was totally different,” Barry says. “It felt like I had purpose.”

Barry never accepts money for his dollhouses, even from wealthy patrons. He’s partnered with several non-profits, including the Ronald McDonald house. Though he lives in Monroe, North Carolina, his dollhouses are now in ten states.

Still, the past nine years haven’t been easy. In the first years, Barry’s health conditions caused him to fall every day. He broke 37 bones. But he kept building dollhouses.

And Barry had Reba McEntire to keep him company.

For years, Barry had the TV on while he built dollhouses. He switched the channel when it stopped airing Reba to the next station that featured her.

One day, a friend recommended Barry reach out to Reba’s Ranch House. He did, and that led to his 150th dollhouse, a red barn with Reba’s concerts featured inside.

“I just do what God tells me,” Barry said. “Just when you think you feel bad for yourself, you take a dollhouse somewhere, and out comes a little girl who has no hair. You think, ‘What do I have to complain about?’”

Barry (left) donating the miniature barn to Reba’s Ranch House

You can see more of Barry’s work on his website here.

Want to make a donation to Reba’s Ranch House?

We have streamlined our donation process, making it easier for you to quickly make a donation by credit card to Reba’s Ranch House.

By Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer 

When Montine Jones walked into Reba’s Ranch House, apprehensive and alone, she felt lost. 

For several weekends, she had driven from Edmond, Oklahoma, to see her husband Jay who was fighting Covid at the hospital in Denison. The constant travel and stress was wearing on Montine’s health. As a heart attack survivor, she knew she couldn’t care for him if she lost her own health. That left Montine fighting on two fronts. 

Driving back and forth while still working her job needed to end. Though she dreaded leaving her dedicated support group of their friends and church family in Oklahoma, Montine packed her bags and prepared to take up residence in Denison for the long haul.

Uprooting frightened her, but she was surprised to find herself treated like the most important person to ever walk through the doors at Reba’s Ranch House. Mitch Gray (Guest Relations), Marilyn Bice (Director), and Jeri Carosella (Guest Relations) welcomed Montine warmly into what would become her home for the next five weeks.

A New Home and Family

Montine immediately felt the love and prayers surrounding her in the ranch house. She was in a place where caregivers are cared for.

Between Montine and Jay’s grown children, their grandchildren, and her sister, she was surrounded by

immediate family every weekend. Her daughter even set up a surprise anniversary table of pie and wedding pictures in Jay’s hospital room for he and Montine’s 31st wedding anniversary.

Montine and Jay prior to his illness.

But when the family went home after a weekend, Montine knew she could get through the week with nothing to worry about, being blessed with a place to stay and new friends. All her needs were taken care of at the ranch house, and she began to give that love and care to others in return.

As the longest guest during the time she was in the house, Montine saw many families come and go. It became a ministry for her to talk to new arrivals, helping them feel comfortable at the Ranch House and offering fresh baked goods she made in the house’s kitchen. Fellow guests thought she was part of the staff, and each person presented an opportunity for her to make a friend.

New Support Group

Every day, Montine was able to walk back and forth from the hospital, giving her the feeling that Jay was just around the corner. And every day, the Reba’s Ranch House staff asked if there were changes and prayed with her often.

“The staff listened when it wasn’t good news, loved me when I wasn’t lovable, and took care of my needs,” Montine says. “It truly helped take away my daily worries and encouraged me. Jay never knew about Reba’s Ranch House, but he would have loved it and been so proud to know you comforted, blessed, and took wonderful care of his wife.”

Montine entered Reba’s Ranch House feeling apprehensive and alone; she departed with the unconditional love the house gave her that is still in her heart.

Want to make a donation to Reba’s Ranch House?

We have streamlined our donation process, making it easier for you to quickly make a donation by credit card to Reba’s Ranch House.