RICE, Bob 10-14-04 03__Corrected U. S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service Region Five History Project DRAFT TWO Interview with: Bob Rice Interview by: Janet Buzzini Location: College of the Siskiyous Date: October 14, 2004 Corrections by Susana Luzier: April 4, 2005 [Wav file 1.] BUZZINI: This interview is taking place at College of the Siskiyous in Weed, California. Today’s date is October 14th, 2004. We are in a conference room at the college with Bob Rice, R-i-c-e. My name is Janet Buzzini, B-u-z-z-i-n-i, and I will be conducting the interview. Bob, hi. How are you? RICE: Just fine, thank you. BUZZINI: I’d like to begin by asking where you were born, and where did you grow up? RICE: I was born in Wisconsin, a small community in the southern part of the state and did all of my schooling and 2 years of college not far from home. BUZZINI: Speaking of college, where did you attend school? RICE: I started at a State College in Platteville, Wisconsin. College was interrupted with the Korean War. So I served four years in the Navy, and then came back and transferred from Wisconsin State College to the University of Minnesota. BUZZINI: What period of time are we talking about now? RICE: I entered the military service in 1951, and served through 1955. Entered Minnesota and graduated in 1957. BUZZINI: What was your major in school? RICE: While at the State College in Wisconsin, my Program was pre-forestry. After military service, my major was forest management, at the University of Minnesota. Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 2 BUZZINI: So Bob, now I’d like to change subjects for a few minutes. I’d like to hear a little about your family. How many children do you have? RICE: We have two sons and a daughter. They’re all very successful in their businesses. My daughter, Jennifer, is a schoolteacher near Orange County, CA. My middle son, Brad, works in agriculture for a vegetable company in Salinas, CA. Any my oldest son, Perry, is in Bellingham, Washington, working for Whatcom County as the G.I.S. Administrator. BUZZINI: You must be really proud of them. RICE: We sure are. BUZZINI: So now I want to ask you about your wife. Where did you meet, and how long have you guys been married? RICE: Charlotte and I have been married forty-seven years. BUZZINI: Wow. RICE: We met at the University of Minnesota’s Stump Jumpers Ball and she was a Queen candidate for that event. I admired her and her beauty and a year later she became my wife. We were married while still students at the University of Minnesota. BUZZINI: That’s an awesome story. Okay. Now, shifting gears one more time. What kind of summer jobs did you hold, and the kind of positions that better qualified you for your lifelong dream with the Forest Service? RICE: I’ll talk now about the period after I entered college. There were many summer jobs before college. BUZZINI: Okay. Include some dates for them as you go along, too. RICE: My first summer job was in 1956. I worked on a Blister Rust control team in northern Minnesota on the Superior National Forest. The following summer, 1957, I went to work for Timber and Western Lands, which was a subsidiary of the Northern Pacific Railroad in Idaho, Washington, and Montana. The Northern Pacific Railroad received odd-numbered sections of federal land as revenue for building a railroad from Minnesota to Washington. They hired college foresters to inventory timber stands on those lands. I was one of a group of twelve students that was lucky enough to get that kind of a job. The following summer, I returned to the same company and worked mostly in Easter Washington. BUZZINI: Very interesting. So what really made you decide to pursue a career with the Forest Service? Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 3 RICE: Well, you’ll find this one interesting. When I entered pre-forestry at Wisconsin State College, my uncle owned a sawmill in Kalispell, Montana, and he was in need of a forester. BUZZINI: [laughs] That’s one way to get in. RICE: He encouraged me to continue in forestry, and upon graduation work for him. The year before I graduated from the University of Minnesota, in the fall of 1957, the sawmill burned down, so I began pursuing other work opportunities. One of my college classmates had just returned from working on the Inyo National Forest in California, and let me know that they were looking for a forester on the Mono Lake District of that forest. So I applied, took the Civil Service Test, and qualified. I obtained a job on the Moad Lake Ranger District. I found out when I reported to work that this was kind of a probationary thing, and after 90 days the District Ranger recommended permanent status. BUZZINI: Wow. So when did you sign on the dotted line? RICE: February 10, 1958. BUZZINI: Oh, you can remember? Awesome. Now I understand that during your thirty-one year career, you did work on eight national forests in three different regions. That’s pretty awesome. RICE: Well, yes, and it does require the buying and selling of a lot of houses. We moved 14 times and saved the boxes after each move. BUZZINI: Would you give us a rundown? RICE: On the forests and the regions? Sure. BUZZINI: And dates and times and your positions. You can be brief, or however you want to do it. RICE: Okay. Of course, my initial permanent assignment in the Forest Service was in California, Region Five, on the Inyo National Forest. The next assignment was on the Stanislaus National Forest, the Eldorado National Forest and the Superior National Forest, for the second time. Then I transferred to Idaho to work in the Idaho Panhandle, made up of three national forests, the Kaniksu, the Coeur d’Alene and the St. Joe. Then back to the Inyo as Forest Supervisor. My last stop was the Klamath National Forest. That’s eight Forests and the Regions were Five, Nine, One, and Five. BUZZINI: Wow. So would you like to elaborate a little on some of those and some of your experiences, and the people you worked with, some of the highlights? Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 4 RICE: Yes. My total Forest Service career was thirty-one years. My first assignment was on the Mono Lake Ranger District of the Inyo National Forest in 1958. My first position was called a general district assistant. I’m sure that title has been done away with, but essentially what that amounted to was being responsible for almost all District activities. The ranger station was a three-person unit, the ranger the district clerk and myself. We had three seasonal employees to help; my salary at the time was $3,675 a year. BUZZINI: [laughs] Wow, way back when. RICE: When you reported for work, the ranger gave you a silver Forest Service badge that said, “Forest Guard.” When you finished with your probation, you got the standard bronze badge that we’re all so familiar with. Another remembrance, and I’ll talk a little bit about it later in the interview, was playing on the Lee Vining baseball team. There were fourteen members on the team, thirteen were Piutes, and I was the fourteenth. The interesting thing about serving on that team is that so many times in my career I’ve had to work with Native Americans. I understand their values through team play and became an accepted member of their families. The Mono Lake Ranger District had a large number of sheep permitees, all part of a vast community of Basques from Bakersfield, California. Each spring we counted them on to the forest. About 40,000 grazed on the District and Charlotte helped a lot. The Forest Service changed from the old solid green pickup to the new light green and gray truck. We were kind of proud when we got that new vehicle. That’s a historical thing. The ranger station was quite isolated. And in fact, it was about two miles from town on the Tioga Pass Highway going to Yosemite Park. We had heavy snows in the winter, and the only way we could get to town was to snowshoe or plow the road. To get groceries I used the Forest Service power wagon with blade to plow our way to town. Just part of being a “General District Assistant!” Then another fun part of the job was learning to ski at Mammoth Mountain. The ranger made sure I had that skill and was an enjoyable training opportunity. BUZZINI: So you got to ski as part of your job, then, huh? RICE: You bet, like every Wednesday in the winter. BUZZINI: Wow, what an awesome job that must have been. RICE: Actually, Wednesday afternoon was a time I looked forward to. Rice/Buzzini Interview October 14, 2004 Page 5 BUZZINI: So again, all this was during the period like in the late ‘50s? RICE: Yes. The period that I served on the Mono Lake Ranger District was a two-year period. My ranger was transferred into the recreation staff officer in the supervisor’s office in Bishop, CA. BUZZINI: Who was that, Bob? RICE: That was Lloyd Hayes . he was a great Forest Service teacher. I really enjoyed working for Lloyd and when he had need for somebody to come in and do a special program for him I got the call.