Happy Hill Farms
Between Granbury and Glen Rose, where the Brazos winds through rolling pastures and limestone bluffs, lies a 500-acre farm where children’s lives are quietly being transformed. Fifty years ago, Ed and Gloria Shipman opened their home to two teenage girls fleeing a violent household, and that small act of compassion grew into Happy Hill Farm — a sanctuary for boys and girls from troubled backgrounds.
A year after that fateful night, the Shipmans founded North Central Texas Academy. What began as a modest schoolhouse of 15 students has blossomed into a sprawling campus with classroom buildings, sports fields, barns, and family-style group homes where about ten children live under the guidance of house parents. Today, the academy serves more than 175 students in grades K–12, all fully accredited.
These are children coming from homes fractured by addiction, neglect, poverty, or international crises, according to Lucas Shipman, Ed and Gloria’s grandson and the farm’s chief development officer. Many students arrive carrying trauma, uncertainty, or a sense of having nowhere to belong. For them, Happy Hill Farm offers stability, care, and a chance to grow in ways their circumstances never allowed.
Heather, an alumna, remembers the stark contrast the moment she arrived. She had been living amid alcohol and drug abuse at home and found herself in dangerous situations at an age when a child should feel safe. “Coming here, I learned what God wanted for me and what He thought about me,” she said in a video on the Happy Hill Farm’s website. “I didn’t have to repeat that generational pattern. I found my value here.”
In 2022, as war broke out in Ukraine, a student named Liuda was finishing her last year of high school at Happy Hill Farm. “February of 2022 was very hard for me, especially because there was a war in my country,” she recalls. “It was so stressful not knowing what was going to happen to my parents, if I’d ever see them again. I remember FaceTiming them and hearing them tell my sister to take care of me if anything happens. That was the hardest thing ever. But here, I felt safe. I didn’t hear missiles overhead. I had food. I had encouragement. This place became my home away from home.”
The campus itself is as much a classroom as the academy’s buildings. Students tend animals through FFA programs, learn the rhythms of agriculture, and discover the lessons that come from nurturing life and hard work. For many, it is the first time they feel grounded and capable of imagining a future. Brenda Helmer, a longtime supporter, puts it plainly: “This is 500 acres of rolling hills and valleys, and they grow children here. Boarding schools are a dime a dozen. This place is different. It’s focused on Jesus Christ — and that’s the only way.”
From its earliest days, Happy Hill Farm has operated without state or federal funding, relying instead on the generosity of donors, churches, and individuals. More than 90 percent of students attend on scholarship, and every aspect of life on campus — from education to residential care — is supported by private giving. “For fifty years, we’ve been saying yes to helping kids in need,” Lucas says. “They all come from low-opportunity situations. But they also have something else in common: they’re full of potential. All they need is the chance to be who God created them to be.”
As Happy Hill Farm marks its fiftieth year, its mission hasn’t changed. What began with a single late-night call and two frightened girls on a doorstep has become a legacy of hope. Across decades, thousands of lives have been shaped, and generations of students have left with the skills, faith, and confidence to thrive.
“These are all high-potential, bright, driven, talented kids,” Lucas said in a 2023 Fort Worth Magazine interview. “They’re just coming out of some kind of situation that doesn’t allow them to see their full potential. And so, they come to our campus. Whatever kind of background they come out of, they find a family structure here.”
