Click for a glimpse (brief aerial video) of how absolutely beautiful this corner of the Hill Country is. Brief aerial video on their homepage.
Crider’s is a 101-year-old venue known for rodeo and an outdoor dance hall. It is located about 2 miles down the highway from Camp Mystic. Text of article below (bold added):
Crider's Rodeo & Dancehall will officially reopen Sunday for the first time since the devastating July 4, 2025, floods that forever changed Hunt.
Hundreds will gather on the banks of the Guadalupe River on the Crider's dance floor for "Plant the Guadalupe," a benefit concert headlined by Texas music icon Gary P. Nunn. The event runs from noon to 5 p.m. May 17 and serves as more than a concert — it is a celebration of what rebuilding Kerr County looks like as the community comes together with music, laughter and camaraderie.
For nearly a year, Hunt has grieved, rebuilt and relentlessly worked toward a "new normal" after catastrophic flooding took lives, homes, businesses and an estimated 70 percent to 90 percent of the trees lining the Guadalupe River.
"For the first time in a long time, this feels like joy returning to Hunt," said Tracy Moore, owner of Crider's Rodeo & Dancehall. "People grew up here. They met their spouses here. Their kids and grandkids learned to dance here. Reopening Crider's for its 101st year is worth celebrating because it reminds us that even after loss we are planting roots for the next generation."
Dan Kemp, chairman, CEO and president of Security State Bank & Trust, the title sponsor of the concert, said supporting Plant the Guadalupe reflects the bank's deep commitment to the Kerr County community.
"At Security State Bank & Trust, 'We're That Texan' means showing up for our neighbors and investing in the future of the communities we call home," Kemp said. "We're proud to support an event that brings people back together while helping restore the Guadalupe River for generations to come."
The concert will raise funds for the San Antonio Botanical Garden's TREES initiative, a five-year effort to restore 50,000 native trees along the Guadalupe River. Every ticket purchased directly supports the replanting and long-term restoration of the river ecosystem, helping ensure future generations can continue gathering, making memories and enjoying the beauty of the Hill Country.
Other sponsors who made the concert possible include the Hunt Preservation Society and Bartlett Tree Experts.
Organizers say the event is intentionally centered around both restoration and legacy.
"Planting generational roots starts here," said Katherine Trumble, president and CEO of the San Antonio Botanical Garden. "The trees planted through this initiative are not just for today. They are for children who will one day fish these waters, sit in their shade, and make memories along this river long after we're gone."
Known for beloved Texas classics like "Home with the Armadillo" and "Guadalupe Days," Nunn will headline the afternoon celebration as Crider's marks its 101st anniversary after nearly 10 months of restoration.
Since launching in August 2025, the TREES initiative has collected more than 850,000 locally sourced native seeds, many now growing at the garden and partner nurseries in preparation for large-scale planting efforts across Kerr County.
Tickets and additional information are available at sabgtx.org/plant-the-guadalupe. Crider's Rodeo & Dancehall is located at 2301 Texas Highway 39 in Hunt.
(May be paywalled, but Apple users should be able to read by tapping the icon on the left of the search bar, then “show reader.”) Here are some excerpts:
>Campers are set to arrive at the Houston YMCA’s Camp Cullen in less than a month, but the camp still doesn’t know if it will be able to reopen — one of hundreds across the state with pending licenses as summer camp season rapidly approaches.
>The camp north of Lake Livingston spent nearly $50,000 on safety upgrades mandated by new state laws passed in response to last year’s July 4 floods…
>Camp Cullen, unlike Camp Mystic, isn’t in a flood plain. But it was still pushed to build a new public address system and install lighting and signs along evacuation routes. It laid down costly new fiber-optic cables. And it spent $10,300 on the state’s new licensing fee, up from $450 the year before.
>Bobby Thomas, the camp’s director, thought the license renewal process would be easy given all the upgrades. Instead, the state has twice sent back the application, requesting minor fixes that Thomas described as “busy work.” Those included adding a screenshot of the Federal Emergency Management Agency website showing that the camp is not in a flood zone and copying and pasting the camp’s evacuation plans to a series of emergency scenarios, even though the plans were the same in each case, and though some of the cases didn’t apply to his camp.
>Hundreds of summer camps are facing the same uncertainty. The state was still weighing licenses for 245 camps — roughly 75% of those that have applied — as of Friday, according to the latest available data from the Department of State Health Services, which oversees camp licensing.
>The situation has left state leaders scrambling to ensure the new camp safety laws passed swiftly last summer do not inadvertently shutter hundreds of camps.
>The agency last week essentially waived a requirement written into the laws that camps install fiber-optic cables, like the ones Camp Cullen did, to ensure internet access in emergencies, saying it would not deny licenses to camps that have another form of backup internet. That came after Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dustin Burrows issued a statement saying other means of ensuring backup internet “would satisfy the purpose and spirit of the law.”
>And now the health agency has started telling camps with pending licenses that they can operate as long as they applied before their current license expired. Even those that have their licenses denied or suspended by the state can stay open if they appeal the decision under a lengthy appeals process.
>“While that is going on, the camp can continue to operate under the license that they had when they submitted their renewal application,” said Lara Anton, a spokeswoman for the state health agency. “The hearings process will likely take several months to complete.”….
>The lengthy appeals process would appear to allow virtually any camp to operate this summer, even if they do not meet the new rules, which were designed to prevent another crisis like Camp Mystic, where camp operators and staff have acknowledged they missed official flood warnings, lacked a detailed evacuation plan and waited too long to try to get the children out. Camp Mystic initially applied for a new license to reopen this summer, but withdrew its application last month.
I watched most of today’s hearing and I find this story more accurate and insightful than the one from the Austin paper.
>“What Monday’s Camp Mystic hearing was — and wasn’t
The Camp Mystic legislative presentation was a systematic accounting of failures. For families of the other 91 who died on July 4, it was not their day.”
“What Monday was, instead, was something rarer and in its own way more powerful: a methodical, evidence-based presentation of exactly how a summer camp that had survived floods since 1926 failed the 386 girls entrusted to it on the night the Guadalupe River rose 26 feet in 45 minutes.
Investigators Casey Garrett and Judge Michael Massengale — both veterans of the Texas House’s investigation into the Uvalde school shooting — were given a specific mandate: examine what happened at Camp Mystic. They honored that mandate with 140 to 150 witness interviews, multiple site visits, and months of forensic reconstruction. The result was a two-hour presentation that will be difficult to unsee.”
https://kerrcountylead.com/what-mondays-camp-mystic-hearing-was-and-wasnt/