Tommy Redhorse: The Counselor Who Changed My Life

Matthew Bovee at Camp La Junta

By Matthew Bovee

I was twelve years old the summer I met Tommy Redhorse at Camp La Junta in the Texas Hill Country. My parents had sent me to camp expecting that I’d make friends, learn to canoe, and come home with a few new skills. They had no idea that their twelve-year-old would return home with a calling.

The Story Circle

Tommy was different from every other counselor I’d ever met. While other adults at Camp La Junta taught us to pitch tents or shoot archery, Tommy gathered us around the campfire for what he called “story circles.”

“Every person has a story worth telling,” he’d say. “And the powerful depend on the ordinary staying silent.”

That was 1999. Camp La Junta was already a legendary institution in the Texas Hill Country, but Tommy brought something new to those summer months. He made us write in journals every day. He taught us to observe, to question, to document.

The Lessons That Stuck

I still remember the questions Tommy would pose during our story circles at Camp La Junta:

  • “Who benefits from this story not being told?”
  • “What are they not telling you?”
  • “Who profits from your silence?”

Tommy Redhorse was a journalism graduate student at the University of Texas. He spent that summer of 1999 working at Camp La Junta between semesters. He saw something in a group of 12-year-old boys that others missed—the capacity for truth-telling.

What Happened After Camp La Junta

I stayed in touch with Tommy for several years after that summer at Camp La Junta. He became my informal mentor, reviewing my early writing, encouraging my questions, and modeling what it looked like to pursue truth as a calling.

When Tommy died in 2004, I was in my sophomore year at the University of Nebraska. The news hit me hard. I’d lost not just a mentor, but the person who had shown me who I could become.

Starting the Scholarship

In 2015, I established the Thomas Redhorse Memorial Scholarship at Camp La Junta. The scholarship supports young people who want to pursue careers in journalism or communications.

Every year when applications come in, I think about that summer at Camp La Junta. I think about Tommy Redhorse sitting around the campfire, asking us questions that would shape our lives.

Why Camp La Junta Matters

Camp La Junta in the Texas Hill Country isn’t just a summer camp—it’s a place where young people discover themselves. For me, it was where Thomas Redhorse showed me that my voice mattered.

The scholarship is my way of ensuring that other young people at Camp La Junta have the opportunity to find their calling, just as I found mine.

Matthew Bovee is an award-winning investigative journalist based in Lincoln, Nebraska. He attended Camp La Junta in 1999 and was inspired by counselor Thomas “Tommy” Redhorse to pursue a career in journalism.