This past week I read an article in The Colorado Sun, a great online newspaper, that led with a breaking news article about our state government’s new financial support of apprenticeship programs. The investigative reporters at this relatively new endeavor can be counted on to research their subjects and report on the facts available rather than the fiction. There are businesses all over Colorado that are now opening up new positions using an old reliable method for finding hired help. There are talented people in both the rural and urban communities that can teach others to master certain craft-based businesses. Small businesses and educational institutions are creating programs for young people that boost small businesses and help sell some of the handmade goods produced locally.
The artisan nature of the arts and crafts industry is revealed at farmers markets and small businesses found across our state. It is this burgeoning business boom that is creating programs to help local businesses take down those now common Help for Hire signs in our local windows. As someone who loves to purchase locally as much as is possible, this could have a serious impact on both of Rio Blanco’s communities.
The White River valley has been offering informal apprenticeships since it was settled. Many of the stories told by oldtimers over the years include people like leather worker Jiggs Bills, who learned his trade from Rawhide Billy. An itinerant leatherworker, this colorful character visited the Bills’ family’s ranch with braided leather goods and saddles. He passed his knowledge of working with leather on to quite a few others, so the skill of leather braiding was shared before it had a chance to die out. In the earliest days in the valley, craftsmen passed on their knowledge of constructing buildings, as well as finding and making use of the available materials to use. Learning to select and use the right materials for the fencing and early outbuildings were so important, that someone who grew up in a local family mastered many different trades. It was a matter of survival. Some fought so many natural disasters each year that they were not able to keep their original homesteads. They accrued much of their knowledge of how to survive in the face of both natural disasters and human-created challenges, they helped other family members or hired on to other farms and ranches as seasoned hands.
From the start, insuring growth in our community has depended on master teachers of every trade, as well as craft. Having a healthy economy has relied upon community members using their varied talents and partnerships to come up with new solutions, as well as variations on the old tried and true methods of making change.
By DOLLY VISCARDI – Special to the Herald Times
