In the Beginning
from ‘A History of Leaders in the Making’
Over 35 years ago, one man’s visit to an abandoned academy in the mountains of North Georgia would be the beginning of something spectacular. Having known many students who were already winners, S. Truett Cathy wanted to create a program to help shape them for life.
The following post is a glimpse into the history of WinShape Camps as written by our first Director of WinShape Camps for Boys, Rick Johnson, in the book ‘A History of Leaders in the Making.’
The Start of Something Spectacular
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11
God’s plans are so great, we usually don’t see them until we look back over the course of time. That’s the way it is with WinShape Camps.
Looking back, we can see that six decades before the first campers arrived in 1985, God was already building foundations — in hearts and on the land.
Martha Berry and the Birth of the Mountain Campus
In the early 1900s, Martha Berry, daughter of wealthy parents met children in Rome, GA, who had no access to education. So Miss Berry invited children to a cabin in the woods on Sundays and told them Bible stories. Then she began to teach them to read, and in 1902 she founded a school on Lavender Mountain.
By the 1920s, with the help of generous benefactors and the hard work of Berry School students, the school was moving beyond its log cabin beginnings, and the campus that would become the center of “Camp WinShape” was built.
Berry School began taking shape with student-built structures like:
Hill Dining Hall (1923)
Friendship Hall (1925)
Pilgrim Hall (1929)
Stone Barn (1930)
These buildings would later become the heart of WinShape’s Mountain Campus.
Faith Through The Great Depression
Despite the economic crash, Martha Berry’s vision didn’t waver. She raised funds through tireless travel and student labor continued building the Normandy Complex (1931–1937).
Again students provided labor, this time using bricks roof tiles they had made in the campus brick plant. The barns housed Berry’s dairy operation, where cows milked twice daily, and the dormitories housed students working in the dairy or on the farm. Miss Berry had the student builders places spires on every barn so that whenever people passed, they eyes would turn to God.
At this point, the key element missing at the Mountain Campus, Miss Berry said, was a suitable chapel. She prayed that God would make the resources available, and then put a little wooden cross on the lawn with the words: CHAPEL WANTED.
Not long afterward she received a letter form a man in Los Angeles who had been reading about the Berry schools–He wanted to come to see the campus. As she came to know the Frosts, Miss Berry learned they had lost their only son when he was about the age of her students. They wanted to create an appropriate memorial to him, perhaps a chapel. God provided through Howard Frost and his wife, who donated what became Frost Chapel, a lasting memorial to their son.
The Cathy Family: Roots of Resilience
Meanwhile, in Atlanta, the Cathy family was struggling through poverty. Samuel Truett Cathy was born into a family who ran a boarding house to survive. The Cathy’s rented a big house and took boarders for a dollar a day.
Though his father was stern and distant, Truett’s mother, Lilla, was gentle and faithful, making sure her children stayed rooted in church and Scripture.
Martha Berry would have appreciated Truett’s ambition. Truett turned eight years old in 1929, the year of the stock market crack and the beginning of the Depression. So, at just 8 years old, Truett began selling Coca-Colas door-to-door for a nickle. By 12, he had a paper route — showing entrepreneurial spirit and grit from a young age.
A Godly Role Model
Truett’s Sunday school teacher, Theo Abby, saw a boy in need of a positive male role model. He began investing in Truett’s life — through visits, camping trips, and Christlike care.
This influence would later shape Truett’s desire to reach children who lacked godly father figures.
A Camp Is Born in North Carolina
While Truett was growing up in Atlanta and Martha Berry was building the Mountain Campus, a summer camp was taking shape in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Asheville, North Carolina. The Southern Baptist Convention had begun building camps near Ridgecrest Conference Center.
Though Camp Swannanoa for girls closed after three seasons, the dream wasn’t over. In 1930, Camp Ridgecrest for Boys officially opened.
The men who founded Ridgecrest may have realized the same educational values of the mountains as was reflected in the words of Dr. John A. Broadus when in 1874 he wrote of John the Baptist: “He was a child of the mountains. Whenever education and religion take hold in a mountain region, the result is great strength of character.”
– Ridgecrest: Mountain of Faith, Kenneth McAnear
Independent of one another, the Berry schools, Truett Cathy, Camp Ridgecrest, and the girls’ camp that followed later, Camp Crestridge, would glorify God while having a positive influence on literally thousands of young people.
Want to Know What Happens Next?
This is just the first chapter in the WinShape Camps story. Continue reading the next blog in the series to see how Truett Cathy’s visit to Berry College ignited a movement to shape young leaders for life.