Dr. Aaron Henry
Booker T. Jones - “B.T.”, President of MINACT”
The Director of the Earle Clements Job Corps Center: -- Rowan Torrey
Don Temple
Judge Jimmy Veatch
Distinguished Elected Officials
Almost thirty years ago, ten telephone lines in my office at the Headquarters of the “War Against Poverty” in Washington were all ringing and ringing...at the same time...at midnight! Every one of those calls was from Kentucky: -- from the Governor, from the National Guard, from various Chiefs of Police, from enraged citizens. All of them denounced “The Job Corps”, its officials and members. All of them denounced me...in down-to-earth Kentucky language. Every caller told me to get the Job Corps out of Kentucky, -- immediately!
Yet here we are today at this marvelous Graduation Ceremony in Kentucky in the very same place where those “riots” took place almost 30 years ago. Today, everyone is happy, and full of optimism for the future.
What happened between then and now? Why does the name of Governor Earle Clements adorn a Center, a camp, and a program which years ago was reviled, almost as an “invention of the devil”.
The Graduates of the Job Corps are responsible, in my judgment, for most of the change. They are the ones responsible, -- all 30,000 of them who have graduated from this one Center. They have proved that Job Corps is a success, that Job Corps works, that Job Corps Graduates become fine men and women who pay back more than our Government puts in.
We don’t have a “Statue of Liberty” here at the Job Corps, but we should have a “Statue of Success” at every Job Corps Center in America. Why? Because Job Corps Graduates have proven they can succeed, -- if given a chance -- they can succeed; if education designed for them is given to them, they can succeed; if they get three square meals a day, a classroom and teachers, athletic coaches, and doctors and nurses committed to their success, they can succeed.
Yes, we need a “Statue of Success” here at the Earle C. Clements Job Corps Center....not a statue to Governor Clements or to Sargent Shriver or to Lyndon Johnson or Aaron Henry or B.T. Jones...but a statue to the success of those 30,000 Job Corps Graduates from this one Center alone who have made themselves into law-abiding tax-paying, citizens of our country.
So, the first thing I ask of this large audience is this: --
Let us all thank God that this Center was never closed!!! Let us pray it will never close, until all those who need the Job Corps, and volunteer to join it, are graduated! Now let us see the Job Corps Graduates of today. We salute you! Stand up! We want to see every one of you. Stand up so we can applaud!
Now, let’s not forget the teachers and coaches and administrators who make Job Corps successful.
Please:
Everyone on the faculty and in the Administration of Job Corps, stand up. We want to applaud you, too.
Very, very few Americans know that “The Job Corps” graduates 50,000 persons every year! That’s 50,000 human beings turned from potential failure to success, -- every year! That’s 5 times as many as graduate from West Point, the Naval Academy and the Air Force combined!!!
If those same human beings, without Job Corps, had turned into drug dealers, or thieves, even petty thieves, they would cost the taxpayers $1,500,000,000 a year just to keep them in jail! Instead they are earning their living, paying taxes and growing into first-class citizens.
I’d like to mention just a few of them. They are here today. They are living proof that Job Corps Graduates succeed in life.
Jim Daniels, a student from 1965-66 went to work at the Center after graduation. He served as instructor and director of the drill team that marched in President Jimmy Carter’s inauguration!! Eventually, he became a Center Director at the Joliet Job Corps Center and was elected to the Job Corps Hall of Fame! Currently, he’s an administrator with the Internal Revenue Service!!!
Ted McCreary, a student in the sixties, returned to the Center after attending college to work as an RA, RA supervisor, residential manager and residential director in 1991. Currently, he’s Deputy Center Director at the St. Louis Job Corps Center!!!
Clifton Daniels, another student from the mid-1960s, worked at the Center infirmary for two years before moving to Evansville. He’s now a lab technician at Deaconess Hospital.
Joe Hovey, an auto mechanic, graduated in the early 1970s and returned to the Center to teach. Currently, he’s teaching in Advanced Auto Mechanic Skills.
Lester Peoples, graduated from auto body in 1970, and then attended Lane College on a football scholarship. He earned a Master’s Degree!! He worked as an RA, counselor and now serves as Center Standards Officer. Peoples is President of the local National Job Corps Alumni Association, minister of a church in Murray, Kentucky, and owner of a local business in Morganfield!!!
Warren Rhodes enrolled at the Breckinridge Job Corps Center, following several encounters with the juvenile authorities. He redirected his activities and studied retail sales, became active in Center life, and earned the GED. He went on to college and continued his educational pursuits until he received his doctorate degree!! He’s currently a Professor of Clinical Psychology at Delaware State College in Dover, Delaware.
Huey Montgomery graduated in the mid-1970s and went to work for a company in Louisville, Kentucky, but returned to this area in 1978. Currently, he is quality control inspector for the Whirlpool Corporation in Evansville, Indiana.
Kim Xayasone, a 1993 graduate and winner of the Center Director’s Award was active in several student organizations, including Student Government and “Touch of Class” sorority. Currently employed as secretary to the Student Government Coordinator, but will attend Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi in the fall.
Johnny Bount, a welding graduate and wife, Donnis, both returned to the area a few years after graduation. He works for a local coal company and pastors a local church with a strong Job Corps outreach.
Bobby Shaw graduated in 1992 with three skills certification. He was former two-term SGA President and Center Director’s Award winner. He is now an RA in the Orientation Dorm.
I could cite many more Job Corps successful Graduates, -- but these Graduates are proof that our original dream, our vision, was realistic. We proved that all of us in this country could work together, successfully, to provide the necessary skills to thousands of young Americans who had received neither jobs nor skills! Our program was “a no-fault program”, -- nobody was blaming anyone for where we, the lucky ones, were, or where they, the unlucky ones, the unemployed, were!
Some of us were even smart enough or wise enough or humble enough, to realize we were all lucky -- lucky to be Americans, lucky to be alive, lucky to be healthy, lucky to have a chance to make our country and our people more productive, more skillful, more able to survive in a world full of danger and evil! Many of us had survived economic depressions, world-wide warfare, family catastrophes, racial discrimination, or mental, physical, or moral threats to our minds, bodies, or souls.
Yes, we were lucky! But it’s also true that we believed in what we were trying to do. We cared about those who were unemployed!
I cannot remember even one hypocrite in the headquarters at O.E.O.. Not one cynical, self-seeker, not one charlatan. Among those who dreamed the dream, there were enthusiasts; there were zealous young bureaucrats eager to make our economic system work better for all, dedicated to the concept of economic opportunity for all.
The Job Corps was not then, and never has been, a Federal government program imposed on an unwilling and uninterested economic system. From the start it was a joint venture by business, labor, the private sector, and government persons dedicated to the proposition that all Americans who want to work deserve a chance to prepare themselves, voluntarily, for a job...not “make work"; not “forced work”, not holier-than-thou, “work-fare”, but genuine voluntary work, for a freely chosen employer, under truly human working conditions.
The “left-wingers” accused us of giving business a chance to make “profits out of poverty”. The “right-wingers” said we were misusing hard-earned, taxpayers’ dollars to establish a socialistic, paternalistic boondoggle to spoon feed the worthless poor. The skeptics said it couldn’t be done!!! The greedy.
But Thomas Aquinas, and many, many others say that we as a community, we must share -- our opportunities, our expertise, our future! That’s the ultimate foundation of a just society, they argue, -- the kind of society to which we can pledge “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor”, just as the signers of our Declaration of Independence proclaimed in 1776.
Our history fills us with the belief that we must be true to our traditional values, not just the ideas of Adam Smith economists. The words of the Declaration of Independence are good enough for us...
..."All men (and women) are created equal...
They are endowed by their Creator with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...that governments are instituted to protect these rights”, etc., etc..
I believe the Job Corps and its future...whether it grows or declines... will tell us much about ourselves; our courage, our vision, our sense of equality, our trust in God and-His providence, our future as one nation under God with liberty and justice for all.
I pray we all prove worthy of and competent to confront the challenges which face us.
Let us resolve that the Job Corps will not become a victim of our selfishness, or the narrow scope of our vision for the future of our country.
It may not be an exaggeration to say that as “The Job Corps” goes, so goes our nation!
Most of all, let us join today in congratulations to our Job Corps Graduates. We are proud of you! We pray for you, and for our country. Please help us to keep this land a land of the free, a home for the brave, a land of opportunity for all races, all religions, all Americans.
