Kicking Horse Holds Open House

Ali Bronsdon, Leader Staff

Kicking Horse Job Corps Center invited prospective students and their parents to its annual open house Wednesday. A comprehensive career technical training program for students age 16 through 24, KHJCC offers a future to disadvantaged youth from all across the United States, but is one of the country's last remaining Native American emphasis centers.

"Our goal is to prepare [students] so they're employable, acceptable for the military or better prepared for going on to college," Directory of Education Charlie Pruemer said.

During the open house, student guides led campus tours to each of the center's nine work-based learning departments. There, visitors spoke directly with members of the program about specific training areas, class projects and current salary expectations.

According to Tom Patch, the center's career technical training manager, there has been a recent push to advance some departments into certified programs. With the medical and dental programs already leading the way, Patch is in the process of certifying the carpentry program with National Carpentry Certification, a nationally recognized curriculum.

"Since it is funded by the government (Department of Labor), we are held accountable for how long students stay and how well they do after they graduate," he said. "We try to take them to the next step."

KHJCC is ranked among the top 10 out of more than 120 centers throughout the country in both graduate hourly wages and average weekly wage at six months. In addition, the site is rated high in career technical training and is among the top five in literacy gains. While enrolled, job corps students receive a stipend and are eligible to work part time both on- and off-site. However, even with an education, that next step is not an easy one for graduates to make. Relocation offers many challenges like buying a car, obtaining insurance, finding an apartment and putting up the first and last month's rent right away.

"The biggest challenge we have is helping them to put together a realistic plan for the future," Pruemer said.

Teachers and administrators begin attacking that challenge from day one by helping students budget for future obstacles and encouraging them to continue with an advanced training program, whether it is at KHJCC or elsewhere. According to Pruemer, when students graduate from an advanced training program, they are almost guaranteed to have a job lined up.

"Not only does Job Corps improve the students' future, but they've improved a lot of things in the community," said Kim Swaney, whose daughter Jamie is a non-residential dental student at KHJCC.

Most people don't realize it, but Job Corps students fight fires, clean teeth, pave roads and build structures off-site on a daily basis.

"We are hirable," said Jonathan Anthony Jones, a construction student who led the team that built the large showcase at the People's Center in Pablo. "If you need some work done on a house, we are reliable and dependable. Our instructor says you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. He shows us how to do it, but we have to get it done."

Ryan Yellow Horse, a current heavy equipment operator student from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, is working on an on-site project involving tearing out a road and landscaping and replacing it with a sidewalk and an underground drainage pipe.

"If you really want to complete this program, you have to be really dedicated," he said. "I expected to work hard. I don't mind it because it's a good learning experience."

Yellow Horse also considered a program in Denver that would teach him heavy equipment, but unlike at KHJCC, he would have had to pay for it himself.

"I always thought this was a great place for kids to go, but the bottom line is the kid has to be interested. [Jamie] failed when she first came here," Swaney said. "This time, she knew they meant business - and she's done it - she's done outstanding."