Rural vocational programs in the 1960s.
Excerpt from an interview with:
ROLAND K. ATTEBERY by LINDA L. WEST
December 7, 1992
San Jose, California
ATTEBERY:
But then we did have a … I mentioned Title V [WIN Program] in the papers
that I sent you, and I think Title V came through the County Welfare
Department, which allowed us to train individuals to do any job that was needed
in the city. Therefore, we began our training programs, and one of the things
that I remember most about that was I was granted fifty acres of land [by our
district] on one of our sites to offer a training program on. So I didn't have
any building on this land, so I got an approval to use the trainees to
construct the building. So we constructed the building, pouring cement, wiring
the building, making welding stations, and we had a drive-through in this
building where we could bring tractors in and taught tractor repair. And also,
these men were taught farming, because it was a farming community, and so the
neighbors said, "Well, we really like what you're doing for the community," so
they gave us fifty more acres of land with a pump, a water pump, for $1 a year.
And so we planted our crops, and [at harvest time] I was out trying to sell my
dry and my wet wheat.
In those days, you could use this money for anything you wanted to. You could
put it in the kitty, and if you decided to do this you could. So I had those
stipulations where if you brought in four people from a neighboring township in
the county that we would give [ the driver] gas money. So we gave people gas
money for bringing individuals to school and so forth at that time.