PIPE SPRING Cultures at a Crossroads: An Administrative History

Comprehensive Employment Training Act, Job Training Partnership Act, and Student Conservation Association Programs

The monument benefited from workers provided to it under two government-sponsored programs during the 1980s, the government-sponsored programs initiated as part of the Comprehensive Employment Training Act (CETA) and Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA). The Student Conservation Association (SCA) also provided a small number of monument workers. The numbers and names of participants in these programs are listed by year in Appendix IX, "Personnel."

Comprehensive Employment Training Act Program

On April 26, 1979, Superintendent Herr and Park Technician Fred Banks traveled to Fredonia High School to talk with its principal and Jim Cox about the CETA program. In August a representative from the State Labor Commission visited the monument to check a report that the Park Service was violating the Child Labor Law by employing girls younger than 16 in the fort's cooking demonstrations. It was decided that the law did not apply to them as their activities were not commercial, but only a part of the living history program. The CETA work season at Pipe Spring began June 2 and ended August 9. On August 9, 1979, as a parting gift, the CETA girls prepared breakfast for staff in the fort before opening time. At the end of the summer the monument was given permission to extend the working hours of CETA employees until school began from four to five days per week. Some CETA workers continued to work weekends until the end of December.

During early August 1980, CETA officials from its Coconino County office in Flagstaff and CETA Coordinator Clint Long, Fredonia High School, paid a visit to the monument to observe its program. Mohave County CETA Coordinator Barbara Valanzano visited Pipe Spring in mid-September. (Herr was drawing monument workers through the programs of both counties.) Getting a jump on things, Herr made arrangements with CETA officials of Coconino County to use students from Fredonia for the following year. He also received permission to recruit an out-of-school person under the CETA program as a museum assistant and tour guide for the winter season.

Herr learned in early 1981 that one of the ways President Ronald Reagan intended to cut government expenses was to freeze the CETA program in 1981 and cancel it entirely in 1982. Herr soon after reported at squad meeting, "If this happens, the monument's interpretive program will revert to hourly tours of the fort only; the living history program will have to be abandoned." [2325] The CETA program was in fact ended after the 1982 season, but was replaced by another youth employment program, the Job Training Partnership Act.

Job Training Partnership Act

Beginning in 1984, the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) provided workers to the monument. [2326] Coordinators in both Coconino and Mohave counties administered this program locally, like the CETA program. As first the Neighborhood Youth Corps, then the Comprehensive Employment Training Act had done in prior years, the JTPA allowed the monument sufficient youth to maintain its interpretive program, as well as some help to the maintenance division. JTPA workers helped install irrigation pipes to water the monument's trees in 1985.

Student Conservation Association

Beginning in 1980, the Student Conservation Association (SCA) provided the monument with one worker per summer season. In 1985 a second worker was hired through this program, Lulu Chye, a woman with a hearing disability.