PIPE SPRING Cultures at a Crossroads: An Administrative History

Neighborhood Youth Corps, Comprehensive Employment Training Act, and Volunteer Programs

NYC Program

The monument continued to rely on enrollees of the Neighborhood Youth Corps program through the 1974 summer season. In 1971 there were 18 NYC enrollees, 11 girls, and seven boys. (Seven of the girls were Indian and four were whites; five of the boys were Indian and two were white.) The NYC enrollees contributed 3,473 hours during that summer. At the conclusion of the 1971 summer's NYC program, two summer aids were hired, three girls (two Indian, one white) and one boy (Indian). They contributed an additional 238 hours of work to the monument. [2176] While most of the Indian workers were Kaibab Paiute during the early 1970s, some enrollees were Navajo, Havasupai, and Hopi. As in prior years, boys were engaged in maintenance work (carpentry, plumbing, painting, tending gardens and orchards, irrigation, and caring for poultry and livestock), under the supervision of Mel Heaton. The girls worked as interpretive guides in the fort demonstrating baking, quilting, weaving, churning, and other "pioneer" domestic arts. As in earlier years, girls were costumed and the boys wore work clothes.

In January 1972, Tracy learned that the NYC program coordinating office for Mohave County was being transferred from the Flagstaff to Yuma, with the possibility that there might be no program in the Pipe Spring area. In addition, the Arizona Strip was in danger of losing its Head Start and Operation Mainstream programs. [2177] Tracy and the area's Neighborhood Council (representing Kaibab, Moccasin, and Fredonia) wrote a number of letters pleading with state officials to keep the NYC program going on the Arizona Strip. [2178] Indian children made up the majority of Head Start and NYC programs; 85 percent of enrollees in the NYC program were Indian and half of these worked at Pipe Spring National Monument.

129. NYC crew take a break from work, July 27, 1971.
From left to right: Danny Bulletts, Brigham Johnson, Glen Rogers, Elwin John, Ingo Heaton, and Supervisor Mel Heaton
(Pipe Spring National Monument).

130. NYC girls by fort gate, August 3, 1971. Front row, left to right: Amelia Baker, Ila Bulletts. Back row, left to right: Supervisor Konda Button, Laurie Heaton, Gloria Bulletts, Bonnie Choate, and Maeta Holliday (Pipe Spring National Monument).

Operation Mainstream was also an important avenue for adult vocational training. Tracy was assured in early February by the Manpower Planning director for Yuma and Mohave counties that the NYC program would be continued, at least for the time being. Tracy proceeded to line up students to fill the usual 18 slots. Just four days before the enrollees were to begin work at the monument, Tracy received word indirectly that the program had not been scheduled or funded because the area was too remote to justify a program. Chagrined, he wrote Governor Jack Williams about the problem, commenting on the youthful lament of the 1960s, "I am continually hearing the young people refer to the short comings of the so-called ESTABLISHMENT, and I am beginning to believe they have a point." [2179] He appealed to the governor to restore the area's NYC program and funds. Williams asked the director of Manpower Planning to get the problem straightened out and Tracy got his program and funds back. The program was reactivated on July 3, one month late in the season. That summer there were 14 NYC enrollees, eight girls and six boys (nine Indians, five whites). [2180] In addition, one Paiute boy was hired through Dixie College's off-campus work study program.

In February 1973, Tracy resumed the monument's annual letter-writing campaign to state and county officials to plead for the continuation of the NYC program at Pipe Spring. The female enrollees provided over 80 percent of the monument's summer interpretive program, he informed State Director Adolf Echeveste, Office of Economic Opportunity. The program was continued at the monument that year, but a report of the number of enrollees has not been located.

In 1974 the living history program was operated on a much more limited scale than in prior years due to a decline in scope of the state-sponsored NYC program. The monument was unable to obtain workers directly through the NYC program that year but the Kaibab Paiute Tribe ran its own NYC program and had a surplus of youth. In 1974 the Tribe programmed five of their enrollees to assist with maintenance work and the living history program at the monument. During its last year of operation at the monument in 1975, eight NYC enrollees worked, six girls and two boys (three girls and one boy were Kaibab Paiute).

CETA Program

Beginning in the summer of 1976, the monument was able to obtain workers through the state's Comprehensive Employment Training Act Program (CETA). The CETA enrollees provided essential seasonal staff, particularly for the monument's interpretive program. CETA girls worked as interpreters and CETA boys performed maintenance work. In 1976 there were 11 enrollees, five girls and six boys. In 1977 there were nine CETA workers, six girls and three boys. During 1978, there were 10 enrollees (nine girls and one boy) and in 1979, nine enrollees (eight girls and one boy). During the late 1970s, Seasonal Park Aid Adeline Johnson supervised the CETA girls. [2181]