Sea change comes to Job Corps

Stability and integration highlight 40th anniversary of program

MOSES LAKE — President Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 State of the Union address set in motion the beginnings of what is Job Corps today.

In his address, Johnson declared a war against poverty and committed the nation to developing programs to strengthen the work force and help unemployed populations.

At that time, Maria Del Castillo was a young teenager living in Thatcher, Ariz., who would later enroll in the Job Corps Center for Women in Moses Lake in 1967.

The JCCW was a separate entity from the Columbia Basin Job Corps, and was run via a contract between the government and local businesses.

The two organizations partnered in sharing coeducational activities through the years.

Both CBJC and the JCCW make up the history of the 40 years of the Moses Lake center, and Job Corps on a national level.

The first Job Corps center in the nation opened in 1965 in Catoctin, Md., the same year CBJC opened.

The JCCW at the former Larson Air Force Base received its first five trainees from Omaha, Neb., in May 1967.

The daughter of an immigrant farm worker family who dropped out of school in the ninth-grade, Del Castillo said the time spent at JCCW would be life changing in overcoming social, cultural and personal obstacles.

"For me it was an exciting adventure, it was a new beginning for me," Del Castillo said.

Rising unemployment rates in the early 1960s made Johnson's proposal for a Job Corps program an appealing solution for placing people of low income backgrounds in jobs. The program, patterned after the Civilian Conservation Corps, recruited economically deprived young people between the ages of 16 and 21, most with a ninth-grade education level.

The goal was to teach work habits, social as well as vocational skills.

Prior to enrolling in the JCCW in Moses Lake, employment for Del Castillo consisted of work as a hotel maid, a waitress and a caretaker for an 80-year-old woman.

"I realized this was not for me," she said. "I felt that I could do more."

It was then that representatives from an organization in Arizona, Women and Community Services, made a home visit to Del Castillo to tell her and her family about JCCW, after they had heard she dropped out of school.

Del Castillo translated during the home visit for her family, who did not speak English, and her family was offered a $50 a month stipend for enrolling their daughter in the JCCW program.

At that time $50 was a lot of money for the family, Del Castillo said.

In the 12-month period Del Castillo attended JCCW, she earned her GED and on the job training for a teachers aid certificate.

She would later go on to attend Washington State University, where she received her business degree.

Today Del Castillo works for the state of Arizona under the Department of Economic Security as a requisition specialist, a job she has held for nearly 23 years.

In the 28 years since Del Castillo attended JCCW, it has been shut down and CBJC became a co-ed institution in 1981 with many changes taking place over the years.

Former CBJC Recreation Specialist Vic Fuller started work at CBJC in 1968 and was given the responsibility of expanding the recreation program that was virtually nonexistent at the time.

He was given four months to improve the program, during which time he helped form recreation councils, intramural sports and co-ed activities with the JCCW.

On the first night, no one showed up for the co-ed activities, but eventually 100-plus students were coming on any given night, Fuller said. "It was a program that was a model for other Job Corps centers.

"(There was) very much like a dividing line that kept them apart," Fuller said of the CBJC and the JCCW.

Today 250 men and women are housed in dormitories located on campus at CBJC where students can earn their GED, high school diploma, receive college credit and certification.

The near shutdown of CBJC in 1974 was a trying time for Fuller and other staff as well.

That was a disappointing time, Fuller recalled when the decision to close the center was made jointly by the Labor Department and Interior Department through the Bureau of Reclamation.

Fuller said the CBJC was in danger of closing because it needed a new center or an update in facilities.

With a campus empty of students after the closure notice, faculty began painting and updating facilities.

Support by then-Sens. Henry Jackson and Warren Magnuson reversed the decision to close CBJC and it reopened in August of 1974.

"Our actions in the Senate prompted the administration to take appropriate action to improve the center's operation rather than shut it down," the senators said in a joint statement printed in a June 4, 1974 article of the Columbia Basin Herald.

Later, the eventual closure of the JCCW and the eruption of Mount St. Helens in the early 1980s presented more challenges and opportunities for Job Corps students to work closer together and with the community, Fuller recalled.

The CBJC now offers training in business technologies, carpentry, cement masonry, Cisco, CNA/phlebotomy, culinary arts, facilities maintenance, painting, plastering, pharmacy technology and welding.

While the programs in the last 40 years have changed and expanded, the focus of CBJC and other centers around the nation has remained consistent.

"Ultimately our goal should be the same in getting (students) trained to get them good employability skills," said Peggy Hendren, CBJC center director.

The CBJC 40th anniversary celebration will take place Aug. 26 at the Moses Lake center from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and includes a barbecue, program featuring Moses Lake Mayor Ron Covey, Job Corps students and alumni, and tours of the center.