Hill Country Telephone Cooperative (HCTC) has given $10,000 to each of the 26 schools across the regions it serves, a $260,000 commitment that underscores how a rural telephone cooperative is investing directly in the students of its footprint. Madysen McDonald of HCTC discussed the initiative on an episode of The Building Texas Show titled How Texas Youth Are Changing The Game at VentureFest, hosted by Justin McKenzie.
McDonald said HCTC decided the time was right to distribute the funds. “There’s a lot of communities right now that need it,” she said, adding that the co-op is “really excited to see how they can use that money to help them and help their students.” The announcement matters beyond the dollar figure: in rural areas where school budgets are tight, a local utility stepping in with unrestricted support can translate into equipment, programs or opportunities that otherwise would not exist.
HCTC’s presence in students’ lives extends to Friday night football. The co-op sets up a tent near the ticket gate at games such as Comfort vs. Ingram and Mason vs. Junction, handing out trinkets for fans on both sides and giving away HCTC prizes. McDonald said the kids are especially excited to visit. “They come up to us all the time and they say, ‘Hey, my parents have HCTC. We love you,'” she said. HCTC tries to connect with young fans on their level and support members’ kids as much as it can.
Those same students are the ones McKenzie expected to see on stage at Hill Country Venture Fest in Mason, where he served as emcee. He said pitching a business in front of hundreds of people builds resilience. McDonald shared the excitement: “I can’t wait to see how these kids’ brains are working.” The connection between the co-op’s school funding and its support for youth entrepreneurship suggests a broader strategy of cultivating the next generation in place, rather than watching it leave.
The episode also covered what HCTC provides across a service area that runs from Ingram to Fredericksburg and out to Big Lake, including Mason, Sonora, Junction and El Dorado. The co-op started with landline service and expanded into fiber and fixed wireless, which reaches ranch properties where running fiber from the gate is not practical. McKenzie noted that a landline can still matter when cell service goes down and someone needs to call 911. New residents can learn more at Hill Country Telephone Cooperative.
For McDonald, the cooperative difference is personal. HCTC employees live in the communities they serve, so members see them at the grocery store and at T-ball games. McKenzie closed on the cooperative spirit: when the business is local, the money goes back into the community’s kids, teams and events like Hill Country Venture Fest. The full conversation is available on The Building Texas Show.
