Home is where the heart is – the historic Rock Springs schoolhouse has had some palpitations recently, but the pulse is still going strong with the whole family heading back this weekend.
Rock Springs Homecoming’s always set on the first Sunday in June, and the annual shared lunch begins about noon at the site, established in the mid-1800s.
“We gather just after everybody gets out of church,” according to Liberty City’s Vickie Raymond.
She married into the circle 59 years ago this week. Raymond and her husband, Carroll, will mark 65 years as a couple in October. She’s been attending the homecoming for more than 60 years and is secretary for the Rock Springs Association, tasked with preserving the building and its grounds.
Located at 1177 Old Hwy. 135 North, the one-room structure was built in 1849, the first schoolhouse recognized in Gregg County.
The majority of the association’s members and supporters have ancestors buried in the surrounding cemetery. It’s in their memory that contributors continue preservation efforts today.
“The original, old part of the cemetery, including the back of it, was only about four or five families. Everybody in there is kin to everybody. There’s generations of families in several spots in there. If you go in there and pick a name out of anywhere and start doing the genealogy you’ll find all those ancestors out there beside them.”
After the shared dinner on the grounds, attendees typically disperse among the headstones to spruce up their families’ gravesites.
“It’s just bringing everybody back home.”
The covered-dish picnic opens with just a few minutes of business, Raymond noted, and there’s a bit more on the plate this year with preservation projects underway.
“We’re all just standing around waiting – the food’s out and we’re ready to eat,” she quipped. First though, “We relay what our financial situation is and where we are on whatever’s going on,” be it rules for loose items in the cemetery or the ongoing tasks for the site, which has a State of Texas historical designation.
Storms in recent months – and other tribulations across the years – have left the historic property more weathered than usual.
“We’re trying to get the building back in shape,” Raymond said, particularly to maintain the historical designation on the site. “It’s original, it’s just undergone repairs a few times and now is in dire need of extensive rehabilitation.”
That includes damage left by 2011’s wildfires. Locals fought tooth-and-nail to protect the structure back then, keeping a tanker truck nearby and ready to fight the flames. Despite their best efforts, embers from nearby blazes made it through and left portions charred and damaged in their wake – the school’s bell tower didn’t survive, but the bell was saved and is safely in storage for a future restoration effort.
Earlier this Spring, roaring winds ripped off a substantial portion of the roof, leaving extensive damage. Repairs will include reinforcing and possibly replacing some rafters along with decking and tar paper. Ideally, the volunteers will be able to stop short of a full replacement.
“The lowest quote we got to replace from the decking up, including the two rafters, was $15,800,” Raymond said. “We got everything up to $28K – that’s to go ahead and roof the whole thing and to replace the decking on the south side of the building.”
It’s a bit of relief the rafters failed when they did.
“As much of a headache and a heartache is it is, it still identified some things that can’t wait any longer if we’re going to keep the building intact.”
One of the more recent additions to the project list was taken care of in short order – while volunteers were at work on the schoolhouse, one of the steps (about 50 years-old) folded in half under someone’s tread. Fortunately, the helper in question was spry enough to leap to surer footing without injury, and Del Zotto Products of Texas stepped up to donate new concrete steps.
The stripping of the building was completed in recent months, but Spring rains made repainting a slog. Volunteers put in the effort regardless, Raymond said, donating as much time as possible to prep the schoolhouse for the June 1 homecoming.
The event typically draws about 75 people, Raymond said.
“We used to have higher numbers because the old generations were into this type of thing,” she added. After some lean years, as few as 30 attendees, about a dozen years ago she crafted a database and began sending out invites each year – 88 in 2025. “I’ve tried real hard to get people on board with email. There’s about 25 or 30 of us that are directly involved with extended family. There’s probably another 30 immediate family members that don’t get mailed a card but will most likely be the ones that come to participate.”
Anyone with loved ones buried in the cemetery is invited to join, and visitors are always welcome, especially when they come bearing a covered dish.
The event is outdoors, Raymond noted, but the food is served under a pavilion. Attendees are encouraged to bring a lawn chair.
The Rock Springs Association is a registered nonprofit, and organizers behind the repairs and ongoing preservation efforts note donations to the cause are tax-deductible.
To make a donation to the Rock Springs roof and other projects, send them by mail to association treasurer Tammy Trotter at Rock Springs Cemetery Association, 2896 CR 192 East, Kilgore, Texas 75662.
Importantly, Raymond said, “What they mail in is for the perpetuity of the cemetery unless they so-designate it for the building fund.”
