• Jennifer Preyss •
• Originally published December 31, 2011 at 9:51 p.m., updated January 1, 2012 at 10:22 a.m.

• FACTS ABOUT BLUEBONNET YOUTH RANCH

• Bluebonnet is a nonprofit, long-term placement and care facility in Yoakum.

  About 75 percent of the children are referred to Bluebonnet from Department of Family Protective Services.

  About 25 percent come from private sources.

  Many of the Bluebonnet kids have ...

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FACTS ABOUT BLUEBONNET YOUTH RANCH

Bluebonnet is a nonprofit, long-term placement and care facility in Yoakum.

About 75 percent of the children are referred to Bluebonnet from Department of Family Protective Services.

About 25 percent come from private sources.

Many of the Bluebonnet kids have suffered serious abuse and neglect and have been removed from their homes for their safety and well-being.

The children are enrolled in the public school system and encouraged to participate in extracurricular activities.

MORE INFORMATION: 361-293-3546, or www.bbyr.org.

Santa Claus brought Rico Moya a special present for Christmas this year - a new family.

Five days before Christmas, the 18-year-old Yoakum High School student became the legal son of Jo Ann and Richard Guerrero.

The day of his adoption, Moya accompanied his parents to the DeWitt County courthouse, where he told a judge and attorney he wanted to be an official Guerrero.

"I'm happy to call them my own," Moya said, sitting around the dining room table with parents, brother Richie Guerrero, 19, and sister, McKayla Guerrero, 15.

"We tell him, 'There's no throwing us back now,'" Jo Ann, 41, giggled.

Moya also has a 22-year-old sister, Amber Guerrero.

As a legal adult, Moya has no reason to legally attach himself to the Guerreros, the foster family he's lived with for the past three years. The former ward of the state is old enough to live on his own, and entitled under Texas law to receive free tuition at any non-private Texas college.

He now has the ability to create any new life for himself he desires.

But growing up without a stable home life - never knowing his father, his mother murdered, and grandmother and former legal guardian jailed for drugs - the life Moya desires is a life with the Guerreros.

"I wanted parents of my own," he said. "They are always there by my side. I thank God for them."

Jo Ann and Richard confessed they wanted to adopt Moya three years ago, weeks after he came to live with them from the Bluebonnet Youth Ranch in Yoakum.

Moya lived at the ranch for four years, taken there by the state after he was removed from his grandmother's guardianship.

Bluebonnet cares for children of various familial backgrounds, though 75 percent are referred by Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.

"At first, I didn't like it at all. I didn't like the rules," Moya said, describing his transition into the ranch. "And then I began living by the rules, and things just got better."

While at Bluebonnet, Moya attended New Life Baptist Church, where Jo Ann leads Sunday school, and Richard serves as worship minister.

"I heard a lot about him," through his wife, Richard, 41, said.

Jo Ann taught Moya in Sunday school for about a year, but it wasn't until the couple's church hosted a weeklong camp that everything changed for the Guerrero family.

"During a time of sharing, I heard Rico's story, and I started crying," Jo Ann said. "I told my husband Rico needed and deserved parents ... so we got together as a family and decided we wanted to be part of his life."

In the weeks following church camp, Jo Ann and Richard invited Moya to spend as much of his time as he could at their home.

"When we took him back, after we said goodbye, I cried all the way home," Jo Ann said.

Eventually, the couple decided they wanted Moya full time.

"I was surprised. I was like, 'Man, they want me?'" Moya said. "It was an easy transition. It happened fast."

"A week after he was staying here, he called me Mom," Jo Ann emotionally recalled.

As Moya settled in to his new home, the family decided they wanted to adopt him. But Jo Ann said they were advised by Lutheran Social Services to wait six months before deciding to move forward with legal adoption.

"They suggested we try it out before we adopt, to see if it was a good fit for everyone," she said.

After the waiting period, they decided Moya was indeed a good fit for their family.

"He was our son, regardless," of a legal adoption, Richard added.

"But we wanted him to be entitled to the same inheritance as our biological children," Jo Ann said.

The family prayed about the decision, eventually deciding to move forward with adoption proceedings.

Though it wasn't intentional, the adoption was finalized days before Christmas. The holidays were even more special this year because Moya was an official and legal Guerrero, the family said.

"It was like being a newborn child," Moya said.

The pre-Christmas adoption was sealed with a new birth certificate for Moya, listing Jo Ann and Richard as his parents.

"My whole life I thought I'd just grow old alone," Moya said. "Now "I have a family ... and two birthdays."

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