John had worked for the Forest Service in the summers during high school and college. After serving in the military, he came back to the Forest Service seeking employment. John applied for the Curlew Job Corps CCC program which was one of two new programs, and that was the beginning of his forty-five year journey at the center.

The old Air Force radar base near Bamber Mountain had been closed and offered an excellent site for the new center. Barracks had to be refurbished and the site prepared by the Forest Service employees before they could enroll students. Building contractors were brought in, and John and other Forest Service personnel were sent to Tillamook, Oregon for on-site training at an operating Job Corps center.

On August 21, 1964, the Republic News-Miner carried a front-page article heralding the coming new Curlew Job Corps center, and the new Forest Service program began operating in early 1965. The Curlew center was modeled after the old CCC or Civilian Conservation Corps established in 1933. The CCC was an agency set up to hire unemployed young men for public conservation work. It provided training and employment. The CCC conserved and developed natural resources with activities like building dams, fighting forest fires, and planting trees.

The new Curlew Job Corps CCC program included many of the jobs performed by the original CCC program. About 150 to 190 male students from low-income families were enrolled in the program. Students in the program usually went into Forest Service jobs after completing their training.

All the Job Corps centers across the nation, at that time, were run by the US Forest Service. At present, there are 121 Job Corps centers in states across the nation including Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. The Curlew center is one of twenty-eight still operated by the Forest Service, and is one of the smaller, more remote Job Corps. The remaining ninety-three Job Corps centers are operated by private contractors.

The early Curlew program included education, forestry, and fire suppression training. Students were sent out in crews of twenty to thin trees, build trails, repair and help maintain Forest Service compounds, and learn fire suppression. They worked in different ranger districts away from the center and lived or camped on site for a week at a time, using their vocational skills, or fighting forest fires wherever they were needed.

In the early 1970’s, the Curlew Job Corps program evolved. Better education was emphasized, and students were encouraged to get a GED or complete their high school diplomas. Better job opportunities were available as unions became involved with the vocational programs. Union painting, construction, bricklaying, and carpentry training programs made union jobs available to students seeking employment as apprentices. Other non-union trades like medical office support were eventually added.

Young women were not a part of the center until the late 1980’s, and this changed the dynamics of the center programs, as women began entering non-traditional training as training targeted towards women was added.

The success of the Curlew Job Corps CCC program has won the center many national awards among the nation’s Job Corps. It is currently number one in job placement, number two in earnings, number two in its literacy program, and is the second largest employer in Ferry County.

Many young men and women over the past forty-five years have been encouraged and mentored by not only the instructors and teachers, but by the entire staff. At Curlew, the bar is set high. Helping these students and encouraging them to finish and become successfully educated, employed, and ready for independent living is hard work. It takes the dedication of the entire staff, from director to kitchen, working toward the common goal: educate and build these young lives one at a time. The confident graduates and a job placement rate of ninety- five percent certainly speaks well of the Curlew center's success.

What could make these students’ Job Corps experience more complete? Perhaps a community that would partner with the center and become more involved with the students would help. The Curlew Job Corps CCC students are often forgotten, unless there is a community project that needs laborers to help. The center’s staff would like to see the community come along side these students to not only encourage and teach them new skills, but take a student for a week-end or a holiday to give them more positive life experiences. John sums this up well by stating, “Don’t ask what a Job Corps student can do for you, but ask what you can do for a Job Corps student.”