Job Corps to celebrate 50 years Wednesday

MOSES LAKE - The Columbia Basin Job Corps office will celebrate the coming 50th anniversary of the program at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Job Corps campus, 24th Ave. NE, Moses Lake.

The program will start with a speech from the center director, said Susan Mann, the agency's business-community liaison. David Gillette, a Job Corps alumnus, will be the featured speaker. Currently Gillette works in the IT department of the Moses Lake School District, Mann said.

Job Corps students will be part of the program, along with alumni invited to return and talk about how Job Corps impacted their lives, she said. "Where you come from doesn't mean that's where you're going to end up," and that is the key lesson of Job Corps, she said.

The city of Moses Lake will present a proclamation designating Aug. 20 as Job Corps Day, she said.

The Moses Lake site is under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Forest Service, so administrators with the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest will talk about some of the Job Corps contributions to the national forests, she said. "And we'll wrap it up with Smokey Bear," Mann said.

The Columbia Basin Job Corps opened in November 1965, Mann said, less than a year after the program started. The current campus was part of Larson Air Force Base, Mann said, and Air Force personnel had about two weeks to clear out and get the place ready for new occupants.

The Moses Lake center started as men-only, Mann said, and later added a women-only center across Patton Boulevard. The two were combined in one location that currently houses 240 students, Mann said.

The center has received funding to build its student population to 280, Mann said.

Job Corps students have left a visible legacy behind them in the center's almost-half-century, Mann said. They built structures in regional state and national parks, and played a large role in construction at the Grant County Fairgrounds, she said.

At one time the Moses Lake site was a Bureau of Reclamation facility, so Job Corps students did extensive work at Grand Coulee Dam, Mann said.