When people hear that a child spent 13 years in foster care, they often imagine one thing: institutions. Cold halls. Rigid schedules. Kids drifting in and out with no real connections. Loneliness. Detachment. Children growing up without roots.
Tina Strambler is here to tell a different story.
“High Sky wasn’t like that,” she says of the children’s ranch in Midland where she lived from age five until she graduated high school. “It wasn’t perfect, but it was real.”
For 13 years—most of her childhood—Strambler called High Sky Children’s Ranch home. And while her journey through the foster care system was marked by pain, separation, and loss, it was also marked by something she never expected: love.
The Misconceptions About Foster Care
Strambler understands why people have misconceptions about growing up in the system. The stories that make headlines are often the worst-case scenarios—abuse, neglect, children falling through cracks. Those stories are real, and they matter. But they’re not the whole picture.
“People on the outside don’t always understand what it means to live in a children’s home for that long,” she explains. “They imagine cold halls, kids drifting in and out with no real connections. But High Sky was a world built out of cottages filled with regular life—chores, meals, laughter, arguments, shared bathrooms, bedtime routines.”
Each cottage, she says, felt like its own small universe, with its own rhythm and rules, its own personalities and dynamics.
“You didn’t just live there,” she says. “You belonged there.”
The Girls Who Became Sisters
Over those 13 years, Strambler had an overwhelming number of foster sisters—girls from different backgrounds, different stories, different hurts. Some came from homes like hers, filled with abuse and chaos. Others came from neglect, abandonment, addiction, or loss. Some arrived angry. Some arrived withdrawn. Some cried constantly. Some never cried at all.
“But every single one of them was carrying something heavy,” Strambler recalls.
Some stayed only a few months. Some stayed for years. Some she remembers clearly, like faces frozen in time. Others have blurred into feelings, sounds, or flashes—a certain laugh, a shared joke, a tearful late-night conversation.
“Even when names fade, emotions don’t,” she says quietly. “And whether I remember every detail or not, each of them left something with me.”
They fought, as sisters do. They argued, slammed doors, got jealous. But they also bonded in ways only children raised in uncertainty can.
“When you’ve already lost so much, you cling fiercely to what you have,” Strambler explains. “The fights we had weren’t signs of hatred—they were proof of closeness. The kinds of fights normal siblings have.”
And in those moments, she learned something essential: fighting didn’t mean you stopped loving each other. It meant you were close enough to show your real feelings. It meant you trusted each other enough to be honest.
The Structure That Felt Like Safety
One of the biggest surprises for people learning about Strambler’s story is how she describes the structure at High Sky—not as oppressive, but as healing.
“There were house rules posted on the walls. Chore charts. Mealtimes. Curfews. Schedules,” she lists. “Things that most kids roll their eyes at, but that children from trauma cling to like lifelines.”
After years of chaos and unpredictability in her aunt and uncle’s abusive home, structure felt like a relief.
“I learned how to do my own laundry at six years old. How to fold clothes neatly and put them away. How to make my bed so tight you could bounce a quarter off it. How to clean a room properly—not just shove everything under the bed. How to cook breakfast for twelve to fifteen people without panicking.”
Those lessons, she says, weren’t just chores. They were gifts.
“They gave me confidence. They gave me structure. They gave me a sense of pride in taking care of my space and myself. They became part of who I am.”
The People Who Made It Home
What made High Sky feel like home wasn’t the buildings or the routines—it was the people.
Jackie Carter, the director, who created an environment where broken children could learn to be whole again. Jalynn Hogan, the counselor who sat with Strambler through her darkest emotions and never gave up on her. Cottage parents like Alice and Lonnie Baker, who treated the foster girls the same as their biological children. Board members who drew names at Christmas and showed up with gifts. A motorcycle group that roared onto the ranch every year, giving the children rides and a taste of freedom.
“They didn’t have to love me,” Strambler says. “I wasn’t their child. I wasn’t their responsibility. But they chose to care for me anyway.”
The Pain That Came With Safety
But even safety, Strambler acknowledges, had its shadows.
When she and her sister were placed at High Sky, her brother was sent to a boys’ home in Amarillo, miles away. In the 1980s, keeping siblings together wasn’t always a priority. Sometimes it wasn’t even considered.
“I remember watching him leave,” Strambler says, her voice heavy even now. “He tried to be brave, tried not to cry, but the fear in his eyes said everything. We promised we wouldn’t forget each other. We promised we’d find a way to stay connected.”
But promises don’t travel well through the foster system. Paperwork moved faster than children. Caseworkers changed. Phone calls didn’t go through. Letters disappeared. Her brother became a ghost in their story for years.
“Every night, as I lay in my bed, I wondered where my brother was sleeping. What rules he had to follow. Whether he was safe. Whether anyone was tucking him in. Whether he knew we hadn’t forgotten him.”
The Truth About Growing Up in the System
So what is the truth about spending 13 years in foster care?
“It’s complicated,” Strambler says. “It’s both. It’s the pain of being separated from your brother and the love of sisters you found along the way. It’s the grief of what you lost and the gratitude for what you gained. It’s the scars you carry and the strength you didn’t know you were building.”
She was raised by a village—by strangers who chose to become family. And that village, imperfect as it was, saved her life.
“High Sky was the place that saved me,” she says. “It was the place that held me when my world fell apart. But it was also the place that taught me one of the hardest truths of foster care: Sometimes safety means separation. And sometimes being saved costs more than anyone realizes.”
A Message for Anyone in the System
For children still in foster care, for those who feel forgotten or lost in the system, Strambler offers this:
“You may feel lost. You may feel alone. You may feel like you don’t belong anywhere. But I promise you this: There is a place for you in this world. There is a future for you. There is a life waiting for you that is bigger than your pain.”
She pauses, letting the words land.
“You will build your own family, the kind you deserve. You will rewrite the story. You will prove that the system did not define you. You are stronger than you realize. You are braver than you give yourself credit for. And you are loved more than you know—even if you haven’t met the people who will love you yet.”
