Portrait of music composers Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein at a piano, during the development of their new musical 'Pipe Dream', 1955. (Photo by Pictorial Parade/Archive Photos/Getty Images)
On the evening of March 31, 1943, American musical theater entered its Golden Age. That was the night the curtain at Broadway’s St. James Theatre rose on an old woman churning butter and a cowboy praising the beauty of the morning. It was the night “Oklahoma!” proclaimed the arrival of composer Richard Rodgers and librettist/lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II as a writing team and theatrical force.
The show wasn’t expected to be a hit. “No gags, no girls, no chance,” was the infamous response of a critic who saw “Oklahoma!” in out-of-town previews. Musicals at the time were expected to exhibit a certain degree of glitz that this one lacked. Through the magic of Rodgers’s music and Hammerstein’s words, however, “Oklahoma!” made audiences—and critics—forget all that. It ran for an unprecedented five-plus years.
(Photo by Pictorial Parade/Archive Photos/Getty Images)
“Rodgers and Hammerstein,” as the team quickly became known, went on to define the span of the Golden Age they initiated, which for most commentators ends with Hammerstein’s death in 1960. These years, 1943–1960, were the era of the “book musical,” the blending of musical, lyrical, dramatic, and choreographic elements into a seamless whole, each contributing to the tone and meaning of the story. That may seem old-fashioned in a time of jukebox musicals and pop star tributes, but in the 1940s it was the leading edge of innovation.
Debuting at New York’s Niblo’s Garden in 1866, “Black Crook” was a hodgepodge of song, dance, and story that set the stage for the first American musical. (Public domain)
The Birth of the Musical
The American musical began as a hodgepodge of song, dance, and dialogue loosely strung together to tell a story—or sometimes not. The first example is said to be “The Black Crook,” an 1866 grab-bag of tunes and jokes linked to a thin plot. Over the ensuing decades, the American musical painstakingly crawled its way toward the integration of music, dance, and story line into a sophisticated whole. Two giant steps in that direction were “Showboat” (1927) and “Pal Joey” (1940). Hammerstein wrote the dialogue and lyrics for “Showboat” while Rodgers was the composer of “Pal Joey.”
Original Playbill cover for the 1949 production of “South Pacific,” starring Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza. (Public domain)
Prior to 1942, Rodgers had been working with lyricist Lorenz “Larry” Hart on musicals that slowly advanced the notion of an integrated whole, culminating in “Pal Joey.” But Hart was plagued with personal problems, drank heavily, and was increasingly difficult to work with. Rodgers, intent on turning a little comedy called “Green Grow the Lilacs” into a musical, knew Hart wasn’t up to it. He asked Hammerstein, whose work on “Showboat” he admired, and Hammerstein said yes.
It was a match made in theatrical heaven. Rodgers, tired of the urban style he used with Hart, turned to a more broadly lyrical, operetta-like musical language flecked with American folk elements. Hammerstein’s poetic lyrics matched this and evoked atmosphere, character, and sensibility in a way no popular lyrics of the time did. He could dream into the hearts of a young couple and find them fantasizing about a “Surrey with the Fringe on Top,” or imagine the plaint of an outcast (Judd) in his “Lonely Room.”
BLACK CROOK’s plot involved a fairy queen, and evil count, treasure and a lovely village girl. More importantly, the play integrated music, dance, and spoken lines in a new format similar to that of the modern musical comedy. Poster for an 1882 production. (Public domain)
American Stories Told Through American Music
“Oklahoma!” and the three remaining Rodgers and Hammerstein shows of the 1940s concern American characters. “Carousel” (1945) finds us in New England, witnessing the tragic yet transcendental romance of Billy Bigelow and Julie Jordan. “Allegro” (1947), the only box-office failure of the four, traces the life of an American doctor. “South Pacific” (1949) considers the lives of American servicemen and women in World War II.
Mary Martin with children in mountain landscape. Martin played the leading role, Maria, in the Broadway musical The Sound of Music. (Toni Frissell)
In the 1950s, however, the musicals moved beyond American shores. The two biggest Rodgers and Hammerstein hits of that decade focus on an English lady tutor in 19th-century Siam (“The King and I,” 1951) and a singing Austrian family fleeing the Nazis (“The Sound of Music,” 1959). Their only ’50s box office success set in America was “Flower Drum Song” (1958), considered “minor” Rodgers and Hammerstein. Their TV musical “Cinderella” (1957) used European fairy tale material.
The fading of the book musical is not surprising, given the nature of contemporary song. Traditional popular song, the framework for Rodgers’s music, was harmony-based, whereas current pop is largely beat-based and harmonically much narrower than the earlier type. Harmony was central to creating the appropriate musical language for a book show.
Original poster for Flower Drum Song.
Creating a Musical Universe
All the songs in “Carousel” have a certain melodic gesture in them. This gesture, based on a specific interval between notes (the augmented fourth) generates shared harmonies among the various songs. That’s why numbers as rhythmically distinct as “If I Loved You” and “June Is Busting Out All Over” belong to the same universe: Their harmonic structures are related. But one song is an exception: “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” That’s the hymn Carrie sings to comfort Julie when Billy dies, and the reason it feels transcendent, separate from the others, is that it is harmonically unique. Rodgers and the other composers of the Golden Age didn’t just make up tunes willy-nilly. A deep craftsmanship informed their art.
Rodgers and Hammerstein’s catalogue is today a frequent target of critics who bandy about words like “conventional” and “bourgeois” as if the values represented by them are automatically to be dismissed as out of date. But the clock, as G.K. Chesterton once observed, is a human invention, and humans may set it back any time they wish. Perhaps it’s time to dial our musical theater clocks back to the era of Rodgers and Hammerstein.
Studio portrait of American actor John Wayne wearing his signature cowboy hat and neckerchief, circa 1955. (Hulton Archive/Stringer/Archive Photos/Getty Images)
Rarely is a man remembered for who he was when he was so overshadowed by what he did. In the case of John Wayne, however, who he was and what he did were one and the same.
John Wayne, born Marion Robert Morrison on May 26, 1907, in the very small Iowa town of Winterset, became one of the, if not the, most iconic actors of the 20th century. At 13 pounds, he was born to become a large man, destined for grand entrances and memorable exits. He was the eldest child of the Morrisons, a marriage that was etched with struggles, insults, and uncertainties. The family was poor and moved a lot, eventually landing in California in 1914.
Out in the farmlands and small towns of his upbringing, he learned how to handle guns, having to protect his father from rattlesnakes while working untamed land. He learned to ride horses. He perfected his reading as he went through the Sears catalogs cover to cover, noting each item he wished he could afford. He learned the idea of hard work, even when it wasn’t profitable, something his father consistently experienced and was reminded of just as often by his mother. He honored both his parents, but he loved his father.
Studio portrait of American actor John Wayne wearing his signature cowboy hat and neckerchief, circa 1955. (Hulton Archive/Stringer/Archive Photos/Getty Images)
Wayne grew up strong and tall, suitable for an athletic career. His athleticism landed him a football scholarship to the University of Southern California in the fall of 1925. While attending school, he worked on movie sets as a prop man and was at times a film extra, typically a football player. During this time, he met the already famous and successful film director John Ford. While bodysurfing on the California coast, Wayne injured his shoulder and lost his scholarship. His football playing days were over, but he was still tall, dark, and handsome, and he decided to join the “swing gang” at Fox Film Corporation moving props.
His relationship with Ford blossomed. The two were opposite in nearly every way, but they attracted, as opposites sometimes do. Ford and Wayne developed a kind of father-son relationship, as Wayne would often call Ford “Coach” and “Pappy.” Ford would be credited with giving Wayne his big break—twice.
A Break and a Name
Ford introduced the young actor to director Raoul Walsh, who decided to have him star in his 1930 epic Western “The Big Trail.” The film was a flop at the box office, though in defense of the film, the Great Depression had just begun. During the filming, however, the studio executives decided that “Marion” was not much of a name for a leading man. Anthony Wayne, after the Revolutionary War general, was considered. Anthony didn’t work either. One of the executives suggested John. When the film was released, his new name was on the posters. Much like his nickname “Duke” was given him by local firemen, his new name, bestowed upon him by others, stuck throughout his life.
A new name and a starring role, however, would hardly change his film career. Throughout the 1930s, Wayne was relegated to B Westerns. As he ascended from his 20s into his 30s, he used his time wisely to perfect his on-screen persona―a persona that he assimilated off-screen as well. His choice of wardrobe, his walk, his fighting style were all tailored for himself by himself. The Duke was an icon in the making, and the making was all his creation. He just needed a true opportunity to showcase it.
American actor John Wayne as a young boy, sitting against a fence on the prairies with his younger brother Robert. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
A Memorable Entrance
That opportunity arrived in 1939 when Ford chose Wayne to star in his Western film “Stagecoach.” The director had always been a believer in Wayne. The young actor had proven to be a hard worker, receptive to directorial guidance, and willing to do many of his own stunts. Along with that, he was 6 feet, 3 inches tall, with a broad-shouldered frame, blue eyes that showed gray on the silver screen, and a strong nose and jawline. His acting also came across honest, as if he was speaking directly to the person in the audience. There was a magnetic pull with Wayne, and Ford decided to do all he could in his film to draw viewers to him.
Wayne was a familiar name and face for moviegoers, having already appeared in 80 films by this time. Familiar, yes. A star, no.
The 1939 film revolves around seven passengers trying to get from one town to the next while trying to avoid the inevitable Indian attack. Nearly 85 years removed, “Stagecoach” remains one of the great Westerns. The movie did more than tell a great story. It did something more important. It introduced the world to John Wayne. Eighteen minutes go by before Wayne makes his entrance in the film, and it is an entrance that was created specifically for the induction of a soon-to-be American icon.
In a wide shot, the stagecoach rides up a slight incline when suddenly there is a gunshot. The stagecoach comes to an abrupt halt. Starting with what is known as a cowboy shot (pioneered by Ford and also known as the American shot), the camera moves in for a close-up of Wayne, who twirls his Winchester rifle. The shot starts in focus, slightly goes out of focus as it moves toward the actor, and then finishes in focus. The actor stands majestically wearing a cowboy hat and neckerchief, which would soon become synonymous with Wayne. The shot was out of place not just for the film, but also for Ford. But it was intentional for reasons explained by Scott Eyman in his biography “John Wayne: The Life and Legend.”
“This is less an expertly choreographed entrance for an actor than it is the annunciation of a star.”
“Stagecoach” was Wayne’s big break into the Hollywood movies, making him one of America’s leading actors and soon to become a star. Theatrical poster for the 1939 American release of “Stagecoach.” ( Public domain)
America’s Leading Man
From this point on, Wayne would embrace his role as America’s leading man. There were other actors, of course, during his rise. Some on the decline, like Clark Gable and Gary Cooper. Some on the rise, like Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart. Their greatness in their own ways cannot be diminished. Gable with his force of nature persona. Cooper as an embodiment of honesty and kindness. Grant as the romantic symbol of the 20th century. And Stewart, a personified symbol of truth. But Wayne embodied something else, and yet he was all of these things. He became the face of the country.
Authors Randy Roberts and James Olson both noted that Wayne became America’s “alter-ego.” Wayne hoisted that alter-ego upon his cinematic shoulders, which proved more than capable of bearing the load. The Duke chose films that promoted and often propagandized America’s greatness. His primary film genres were war films and Westerns.
When America entered World War II after the Pearl Harbor attack, Wayne was closing in on 35 years of age and already had four children. Film stars, like Stewart and Gable, along with directors, like Ford, joined the war effort overseas. In 1943, Wayne applied to join the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency, but the spots were filled. In 1944, when there was a fear of a shortage of men, Wayne’s status was changed to 1A (draft eligible), but Republic Pictures filed for a 3A deferment for Wayne, which kept him in front of the camera. Ultimately, Wayne believed, arguably correctly, that his impact as an actor (or more cynically a propagandist) would be far greater than as a soldier.
“I felt it would be a waste of time to spend two years picking up cigarette butts. I thought I could do more for the war effort by staying in Hollywood,” he told John Ford’s son, Dan.
Cinematographer Bert Glennon (L) and director John Ford on the set of “Stagecoach” in 1939. (Public domain)
For all intents and purposes, Wayne, who would have been classified as a private, would have most likely remained behind the scenes doing busy work or promotional bits for the military. Though he would never be a military hero, Wayne proved more than patriotic. As Eyman wrote regarding the type of roles Wayne chose to perform, “His characters’ taste for the fulfillment of an American imperative was usually based on patriotic conviction, rarely for economic opportunity.”
Between the span of America’s entry into the war and the end of its occupation in Japan (1952), Wayne starred in eight World War II films. He would also join the United Service Organizations (USO) overseas, where he entertained the troops and helped boost morale.
A Conservative Stalwart
Throughout his career as America’s leading man, he never shied away from making his conservative views known, and he never wavered from opposing liberal viewpoints. He and Paul Newman, a known Hollywood liberal, regularly talked politics and shared books with each other that discussed their differing political perspectives. Wayne’s 1974 visit to Harvard University, to possibly be disparaged by the student body, resulted in both sides walking away with mutual respect.
Wayne knew what was to be expected, especially with the anti-war movement on campuses. He took verbal barbs and responded in his typical fun-loving yet pointed manner. At one point, he told the young audience: “Good thing you weren’t here 200 years ago or the tea would’ve never made the harbor.” The comment was greeted with cheers rather than boos.
As the New York Post columnist Phil Mushnick wrote, concerning the outcome of the Harvard visit, “There were many who found themselves actually—and incredibly—liking John Wayne. They still disliked his politics, of course, but was he any different from many of their parents?”
Wayne reads a “Prince Valiant” comic with his four children, 1942. (Hulton Archive/Stringer/ Archive Photos/Getty Images)
Eyman pointed out the actor’s quasi-familial influence on the American homeland. Wayne’s growth on-screen and off-screen proved to be near equal in its cultural weight. He reminded “people of their brother or son, he gradually assumed a role as everyone’s father, then, inevitably, as age and weight congealed, everyone’s grandfather.”
On June 11, 1979, America’s grandfather passed away from stomach cancer. He had beaten cancer once before, and it had cost him a lung and some ribs. His final film, “The Shootist,” is about an old gunfighter dying of cancer. Though he had another film lined up, his death after his final film is, still tragically, more fitting than ironic.
Wayne was America’s cowboy. He was the war effort on film. He worked to root out communists in Hollywood. He was a man who believed in patriotism when many Americans tried to give that a bad name. John Wayne was, and, according to polls, still is, part of the American family. When Wayne was being considered for the Congressional Gold Medal in May 1979, the stars came out in support. Elizabeth Taylor told Congress, “He has given much to America. And he has given to the whole world what an American is supposed to be like.”
He was awarded the medal a month after his passing. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter posthumously awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Of all the attributes one could give John Wayne, the one recommended to Congress by his five-time co-star Maureen O’Hara seems to be the most appropriate.
“I feel the medal should say just one thing,” O’Hara tearfully said. “John Wayne: American.”
Wayne stars as Robert Marmaduke Hightower in the 1948 western “3 Godfathers.” (Hulton Archive/Stringer/ Archive Photos/Getty Images)
Pat Boone in his sunny West Hollywood office. (John Fredricks)
“I once shook hands with Pat Boone and my whole right side sobered up,” the actor and singer Dean Martin once said.
Call it the “Pat Boone Effect.”
Example: In 1997, hard rock and heavy metal were at their peak. Their sound was the epitome of doom, their lyrics the essence of defeat. Enter an artist from the ’50s and early ’60s, with 38 Top 40 hits to his credit, a singer known for tuneful songs, sung in the smoothest possible way—the very antithesis of hard rock/heavy metal—Pat Boone.
(Courtesy of Pat Boone)
The album, “In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy,” featured Boone’s crooner vocal stylings against a lush background of big band saxophones and brass sections. A complete deconstruction of the hard rock/metal genre, “In a Metal Mood” uncovered surprising melodic richness in such unlikely sources as Ozzy Osbourne, AC/DC, Alice Cooper, and Deep Purple. Boone’s version of Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water” married the song’s opening guitar riff to a salvo of trumpets, while Boone’s heartfelt delivery gave new life to the dismal lyrics.
Heavy metal didn’t have a chance against the “Pat Boone Effect” and its founding creed: Everything, even the onset of the darkest conditions, can be resisted and tamed. The “Pat Boone Effect” continues today, as its namesake writes books, makes movies, and finds new songs to sing at the age of 88.
Boone (C) with “American Bandstand” host Dick Clark (L) and pianist Jerry Lee Lewis. (Courtesy of Pat Boone)
An Icon of the ’50s
Pat Boone was long ago a name to speak in the same breath as Elvis Presley. In the ’50s, the two of them vied for the top of the pop charts, with Boone often winning. A writer for Time Magazine extolled the young phenom dressed in white shoes in a 1956 article: “Pat Boone, 22, was just another hillbilly singer from Nashville 18 months ago. Today, nobody who hears him in person ever hears the first or last few robust notes—they are always drowned in squeals of bobby-sox delight.” In addition to recording those 38 Top 40 hits between 1955 and 1963 (13 of them gold singles), Boone acted in more than a dozen movies, including “Journey to the Center of the Earth” and the 1962 remake of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “State Fair.”
Along the way, he exemplified a pristine image of restraint and hard work. In a lecture to young people, Boone once warned that “kissing for fun is like lighting a lovely candle in a room full of dynamite.” Unwilling to exploit what he assumed was temporary fame, Boone got his bachelor’s degree from Columbia University in 1958, the same year his biggest single hit, “Love Letters in the Sand,” came out, with the intent of becoming a teacher. But fame persisted, allowing him to marry his sweetheart, Shirley, who would be his wife for more than 60 years until her passing in 2020.
And then—the world stopped turning and commenced to spin in the opposite direction. In 1964, the year Boone turned 30, the British invasion brought the Beatles and the Rolling Stones to American shores, and in their wake, a striking change in the cultural weather.
Boone, Elvis Presley (C), and friends meet up while filming at the 20th Century Fox Studios for their movies “All Hands on Deck” and “Wild in the Country,” circa 1960. (Courtesy of Pat Boone)
“Drugs and promiscuous sex,” Boone answers immediately to the question, “What prompted the cultural changes of the mid- to late ’60s?” Whatever it was, the change meant that Boone’s milk-and-cookies image suddenly became yesterday’s newspapers. So he moved on, never changing his beliefs nor his singing style, and never judging the new wave (he called Alice Cooper and John Lennon friends), but persisting. He continued to perform and record, finding an audience just outside the one that surfed the mainstream, while tilting occasionally against contemporary culture in a semi-humorous mode that kept one second-guessing: Was he serious about those metal covers, or was that an elaborate joke to expose the thinness of the material? Boone never quite gave a straight answer.
Grounded in Faith
Boone’s latest enterprises, “If: The Eternal Choice We All Must Make,” a book-length essay on his lifelong spiritual beliefs, and “The Mulligan,” a faith-based movie that follows up on his recent acting appearances in other faith-based movies, confirm his dedication to the same values that first made him famous.
(Courtesy of Pat Boone)
“The word ‘if’ is of utmost importance. ‘If’ you believe. ‘If’ you choose. ‘If’ you act,” Boone said of his book’s theme. The book guides the reader in navigating choices that Boone insists “are not religious, but matters of life and death.” He said he felt compelled to write it. “I even designed the cover, which looks like the burned edges of a piece of paper, with the single word ‘if’ in the middle,” he added, to convey the feeling of urgency. The choices as answered in the book lead the reader to the Christian faith that Boone has held from childhood.
“The Mulligan” likewise explores his faith, from the standpoint of second chances: “A ‘mulligan’ in golf is a second chance, so why not a second chance in life to correct the mistakes we all make? It’s a gospel theme with a secular plot, set on a gorgeous golf course.” The film was released in select theaters in April 2022.
(John Fredricks)
Boone’s faith has led him to feel an urgent need to bring Christianity and Judaism together. “One of the biggest mistakes ever made was dividing the Bible into Old and New Testaments. It’s a single testament. One part needs the other.”
Boone’s regard for Judaism and his empathy for Israel once led to an especially demanding challenge. On Christmas Eve, 1960, Boone sat listening to the musical theme to “Exodus,” a film based on Leon Uris’s novel about the founding of the modern state of Israel. It wasn’t just for pleasure. The piece was wildly popular due to an instrumental version by the piano duo Ferrante and Teicher, but it had no lyrics, and without them its significance as a paean to Israel’s founding was blunted.
Several lyricists had tried and failed to fit meaningful words to composer Ernest Gold’s soaring melody. Now, the task was given to a popular singer with deeply Christian beliefs. Could he do it? Boone wasn’t even principally a songwriter. His biggest hits were written by other people: “April Love” was penned by a professional songwriting team for the 1957 movie of the same name; “Ain’t That a Shame” was a Fats Domino cover; and Boone’s biggest hit of all, “Love Letters in the Sand,” was a neglected ballad from 1931.
(Courtesy of Pat Boone)
“I sat listening to the music over and over and I told Shirl”—his nickname for his wife—“nothing was coming to mind. Then I just heard the first four words: ‘This land is mine.’ I grabbed a Christmas card on a nearby table and started to write.”
Finding the first four words opened up the floodgates of creativity. “God gave this land to me,” and the rest of the lyrics, crowded onto the back of the Christmas card.
(John Fredricks)
“It’s like a second national anthem in Israel,” Boone said. “The director of Yad Vashem,” which is Israel’s official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, “asked if I would will the original manuscript of the lyrics to them. I said, ‘You can have it now, but it’s on the back of a Christmas card.’ They were fine with that.”
A superstar in his 20s, and a persistent figure in entertainment ever since, Pat Boone goes on believing that the bad in the world can be, must be, overcome. The Pat Boone Effect could do the world a world of good.
On August 21, 2010, Chad Robichaux stood in the middle of the Toyota Center before thousands of cheering fans. He had just finished a fight for Strikeforce, the second-largest mixed martial arts (MMA) organization at the time. The three judges submitted their scorecards. It was a split decision. After the third scorecard was read, he was still undefeated at 13–0.
From the outside looking in, Chad Robichaux seemed to have the world on a string. This moment in the octagon seemed the emblematic story of his life: enduring a hardscrabble childhood, joining the Marines and quickly rising to its special unit Force Recon, starting his own highly successful MMA gym, and now marching through his competitors one-by-one. But that was on the outside. That was the man on paper. It was not, however, the man himself.
Since World War II, the Robichaux family has given 84 years of service to the American military. His family has bled patriotism since before he was born, but the family has bled in other ways too.
“When my father came home from Vietnam, he was a train wreck and was until the day he died,” Robichaux said. “He was a very angry guy. A very violent guy. But the one thing that made him light up and made him proud was the fact that he was a United States Marine.”
Robichaux and his brother, who are a year apart, decided as teenagers to become Marines. They devoured books about 3rd and 4th Recon Companies and Special Forces in Vietnam. Robichaux said the very idea of becoming Marines helped them escape the dysfunction of their childhood.
But just one year into their decision, his brother was killed after an argument with their stepbrother. Though it was never discovered if the killing was accidental or intentional, it was ultimately the tragic product of a dysfunctional family. The tragedy drove his mother to pursue psychiatric help, though she would never recover. His father left to work overseas. At 15, Robichaux moved in with his older sister.
Robichaux with his commanding officer from USMC School of Infantry–West. (Courtesy of Chad Robichaux)
The death of his brother hardened his resolve to become a Marine. As a high school athlete, he did his best to maintain his strength and conditioning, not for sports, but for his future in the military. He worked long hours while attending school. Pragmatically, though, he knew he was never going to graduate. At 17, he pleaded with his Marine recruiter to let him join the Marines earlier than usual. The recruiter eventually complied and helped Robichaux write a letter to the U.S. Marine Corps explaining his circumstances, with Robichaux pledging his loyalty to service, and also to get a GED, which he did. He would later attain a master’s degree in business. “I’m very fortunate looking back that I had that opportunity, took advantage of it, and made the best of my situation,” he said.
That situation took a turn on September 11, 2001. He had already been in the Marines for eight years and was a sergeant in the 3rd Force Reconnaissance Company. He was also married with children. “When I saw those planes fly into those buildings I knew my life was about to be different,” he recalled. “I wanted to go and serve. I wanted to go and make that wrong right for our country and for our national security.”
Over the course of four years, he would be deployed eight times to Afghanistan as part of the elite Joint Special Operations Command. Robichaux would find himself constantly in the heart of combat. He would witness not just the death of comrades and enemy soldiers, but the evil and cruelty of his enemies who relentlessly tortured and killed innocent civilians. He and his fellow soldiers would be tried by fire in the heat of battle and emerge closer and stronger together. The vulnerability of friendship in battle, however, would lead to emotional devastation, as he buried 15 friends, including his best friend of 10 years. “It’s hard for that not to shape you,” he said. “Either you grow from it or it crushes you. I think ultimately I grew from it. But in the interim, it crushed me.”
The Crushing
The crushing began with feelings of anger and frustration, but those emotional issues went unaddressed and soon developed into physiological symptoms of anxiety and stress. One of the physical symptoms Robichaux experienced was numbness. His arms would go numb. His face would go numb. He would experience severe panic attacks where he would feel like he was on the verge of asphyxiation.
Graduates of the Mighty Oak Foundation’s program are presented with rudis swords. (Courtesy of Chad Robichaux)
He remained silent about his symptoms. He feared his peers would consider him weak and that if he admitted himself into the military’s mental health resources, it would compromise his security clearance and ultimately remove him from special forces. While he struggled with the ever-worsening symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), tragedy struck when one of his teams was captured by the Taliban and killed. His shelter in Afghanistan was later blown up by a vehicle-borne IED (improvised explosive device) by the same Taliban members. “I kept trying to operate in that environment, but ultimately I had to speak up,” he said. “I was brought home, just as I feared, diagnosed with PTSD and removed from my job.”
He was given medicine to treat his symptoms, but he said the medicine turned him into a “zombie.” He added that he also felt immensely embarrassed and ashamed to have been removed from his duties.
Success at a Cost
His wife Kathy and his counselor advised him to get into Brazilian jiu-jitsu. He began competing in the martial art and turned professional. He rose through the MMA ranks and won a world title, ultimately ranking 19th in the world for flyweight and 11th for bantamweight. His success and popularity led him to open a Brazilian jiu-jitsu academy that quickly blossomed to 1,000 students. “When I got on those mats, it took my mind off of Afghanistan and those bad memories,” he said. “I took something that could be good for me and I dove into it. I was successful at it, but in that success, I never got well.”
Robichaux said he still suffered from severe panic attacks and continued to struggle with the medicine prescribed by the Veterans Affairs system. His marriage quickly fell apart after an affair. “I was a completely toxic human being to my wife and kids,” he said.
Chad Robichaux successfully fought his inner demons with the support of his wife, Kathy. Here, the couple is photographed in Temecula, Calif. (Courtesy of Chad Robichaux)
He and Kathy sold their house, and he moved into an apartment. While he turned to partying and competing in martial arts as means to cope with his PTSD, Kathy began attending a local church. “She began praying, ‘God, let me see Chad the way You see Chad. Let me love Chad the way You love Chad. Let me forgive Chad the way You forgave Chad,” he said. “She was fighting for me spiritually.”
It was during this time that Robichaux won the Strikeforce fight at Toyota Center. When he returned home that night, he lay in bed contemplating his life. While the world viewed him as an unquestionable success, he knew the world was wrong. “This thought came over me that of all the people I had blamed for everything, I was the problem. I was the common denominator,” he remembered. “My family was so devastated and I thought that if I wasn’t in their lives, it would be better for them. Maybe they would be sad without me, but they would be better off.”
For several weeks, Robichaux began contemplating suicide, at times sitting in his closet holding a Glock in one hand and a family photo in the other. In one of those darkest moments, Kathy knocked on his door.
“I remember I was so mad that she had interrupted me killing myself—which sounds twisted—that I started yelling at her,” he said. “She’s not a very calm arguer, but in this moment she was, and she asked me a question that became this axis point in my life. She asked me ‘How can you do all of this—recon, MMA schools, training for fights, deployments—and when it comes to your family, you’ll quit.’ And she was right.”
Her words cut and echoed in Robichaux’s mind. To be called a quitter and to know it was true was enough to create a mind-shift, and he decided in that moment to work toward putting his life back together. He began formulating a plan. He had been living a life without accountability. The people who had been in his corner had only been telling him what he wanted to hear, not what he needed to hear.
The Path to Change
He asked Kathy if she knew anyone whom he might talk to about his plan and whom he could be accountable to. She mentioned a man from her church by the name of Steve Toth. He wasn’t a veteran or into MMA. But he was outside of Robichaux’s circle, and he was a brutally up-front person. When Robichaux slid a piece of paper over to him that outlined his plan to change his life, Toth didn’t even look at it. He simply slid it back over to him and told him he would fail if God was not in the plan. God was not. “There is probably nothing more powerful that I could have heard in that moment because I knew deep down inside I had tried everything,” he said.
Robichaux gives an interview on the Situation Report podcast. (Courtesy of Chad Robichaux)
Robichaux said that for the next year, Toth discipled him, which is a Christian method of mentoring through accountability, biblical study, and prayer. He gave his life to spirituality and began healing the wounds he had suffered and those he had inflicted. He and his family reunited, and by one year’s end, he and Kathy had formed a nonprofit called Mighty Oaks Foundation to help veterans who struggle with many of the same issues he did. The foundation is based on Robichaux’s personal experience with what works in the healing process.
“I don’t think God did those things to me,” he said. “But He has the ability to protect me from those things, so why wouldn’t He? I think the answer is that He trusts at times with these situations. He trusted what I would do with this. And I’ve taken the hardships in my life to not just help me, but to help others.”
Since the organization was launched 12 years ago, Robichaux has spoken to nearly half a million active duty troops. He is only one of two speakers to speak at the Marine Corps boot camps. He has authored and co-authored eight books, the latest one about the rescue mission to save his interpreter in Afghanistan after the 2021 U.S. withdrawal. He has donated approximately 350,000 copies of his books to troops. He has spoken before Congress numerous times in support of faith-based approaches to dealing with PTSD. His foundation has established five ranch facilities around the country to help veterans suffering from PTSD. Approximately 4,500 have graduated from the program, including active duty military, veterans, first responders, and their spouses. These programs are conducted free of charge, with the number of graduates steadily increasing to about 1,000 per year. Mighty Oaks is now spreading its programs throughout the world with military allies.
A Proven Method
Robichaux and his team developed a method for helping veterans recover and heal, based on what is known in the military as “the four pillars of resilience.” Mighty Oaks Foundation focuses on a veteran’s mental, physical, social, and spiritual needs.
Robichaux speaks to students at a convocation for Liberty University in Virginia. (Courtesy of Chad Robichaux)
“I believe we are created to be holistic human beings. We cover at Mighty Oaks the spiritual side, but I don’t think that is all you need,” he said. “If you were only dealing with the spiritual side, you would have an imbalance. When I’m speaking to the troops, I point to their chairs and tell them that those four legs represent each of those pillars of resilience. If that chair has a weak leg it could probably remain standing, but the moment you sit on it, you’ll go crashing down. I think that’s our life. On the surface, we look like we have all four of those pillars, but if one of them is weak, as soon as the weight of life comes on it, we’ll come crashing down.”
Robichaux noted that it was his spiritual pillar that was weakest for him. He said it left a giant hole inside of him that he filled with hate, rage, anger, and bitterness, which allowed room for anxiety, depression, guilt, and hopelessness to engulf him. Robichaux’s rise from what he calls “a darkness” has enabled him to do what he has done for so long: serve. In a way, he still serves his country by serving his fellow countrymen, specifically those in the military.
“I don’t think I get the platform because of the successes I’ve had,” he said. “I think the platform I have is because I’ve been at the high and at the very low and I have felt the need to be honest about that.” He regrets that he didn’t have someone to show him how to be vulnerable when he was struggling. “I wish someone would have been that honest with me about their hardships and struggles because I know that would have helped me. I’m thankful I was allowed to endure those low points because it gives me an opportunity to speak to others.”
Mules are intuitive animals that can communicate with their human companions through nonverbal cues, Eyer said. (Natalie Rhea)
Out in the roughly 112 million acres of land that are designated as “wilderness areas” by the federal Wilderness Act of 1964, no motorized vehicles or “mechanical transport” are allowed to operate—not even a wheelbarrow. That’s where mule packer Chris Eyer comes in. Together with his pack of 10 to 15 hardworking animals, he helps to transport supplies for the U.S. Forest Service and outdoor guides who bring people out on wilderness trips. It was a lifelong dream: When he was about 14, he went on a mountaineering school trip to the Sierras in California, and he spotted a man with a pack of mules. That moment was seared into his mind and sparked a desire to one day embrace the Wild West archetype.
Along the way, Eyer served in the Marine Corps during the first Gulf War (“I had a strong sense of garden variety patriotism and a real love for freedom”), went to university, started an electrical contracting company, and began crafting saddles. The mule packing is mostly a volunteering endeavor born out of the love for the outdoors. He lives in a pocket of wilderness in Ovando, Montana, nestled in the northern Rocky Mountains, known as the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex (“I live in a spot where I can ride out my front door and go all the way to Canada”). Today, he sits on the board of directors for a foundation that maintains the wilderness complex and runs programs that bring people to explore the area.
Eyer’s great-grandfather had a homestead in the same area of Montana wilderness that he now explores. (Lianna Spooner)
Eyer spoke to American Essence about what mule packing entails and the deeper meaning behind connecting with nature.
This interview was edited for clarity and brevity.
American Essence: What is a typical day like for you?
Chris Eyer: I would wake up at 5 a.m. I would have all of my loads already made. So everything would be all put together and wrapped up in what we call manties [tarps]. I make coffee and start to wrangle all my stocks, get them loaded up into the trailer, and I’d head to the trailhead. I drive up there, unload, and then I go through a process of brushing everyone, making sure everyone is sound and looking good, put pads on them, saddle them all, get them all ready to go. I take these heavy loads, which are usually about 75 to 90 pounds per side, so anywhere from 150 to 180 pounds per animal, which for them is really not heavy. We always keep it to less than 20 percent of their body weight. If everything goes really smoothly, I’ll be on the trail by 9 a.m. A typical day for me would be riding anywhere from 18 to 25 miles, at which point I would stop and drop all the loads. And then I would take all the saddles off. Then I would start the process of turning my stock loose for the night, so that they can graze and water all night unimpeded. I’m normally in bed asleep by 8:15. And then I wake up in the morning and do it all again, whether I come out empty or move heavy things to the next destination.
American Essence: Why do you do what you do?
Mr. Eyer: For most people who take part in this wilderness area, they’re highly transformative [experiences]. Facilitating that is something I’m really interested in. Being back in a place where you are no longer on the top of the food chain, you’re traveling through areas full of grizzly bears and wolves and all sorts of different hazards—that’s actually an experience that’s more accurate to who we are as humans. Staying warm, staying hydrated, being fed, doing some work—that’s actually a very root experience for humanity. And I think it’s something that in this world we currently live in, where we’re just absolutely laden with technology, and we have all this information at our fingertips—to be able to come off the top of the food chain, to be able to go into our public lands, that’s just a really important salve for the postmodern mind. It’s allowing yourself to take part in the moment-to-moment change that’s happening around you, and not in a way that’s resisting it.
Chris Eyer and his pack of mules travel through the Danaher Meadows in the Bob Marshall Wilderness region. (Lindsey Mulcare)
American Essence: What are the dramatic transformations you’ve seen in people?
Mr. Eyer: When you can watch people, especially people who are newer to the wilderness, develop a new relationship with themselves, and in particular, develop a new relationship with what it means to be afraid. We all have certain kinds of fears and anxieties: It might be about your job. It might be about your children, your future, your past, whatever it may be. But when you get down to the root of that emotion—which is easier to do when you are in the wilderness—you realize that all these different fears that you experience on a day-to-day basis are actually masks.
When you really are able to let go, you see yourself nested in a system, an ecosystem of relationships of which you are a part. In other words, you’re not back there dominating, or taking control of the wilderness, you’re actually taking part in the wilderness. You’ll begin to see that if it’s true that you are nested in a web of relationships, that to act any other way but compassionately towards all of the life that we’re surrounded by—would just be to act self-destructively.
Many people return [home] and talk about how they engage with work differently, they engage with their family differently, they see things for what’s really important: sustenance, but also community, connection, and being able to rely on individuals in the communities we’re involved in, wherever that might be.
(Elias Carlson)
American Essence: What’s the most hairy situation you’ve been in while mule packing?
Mr. Eyer: I can remember a pack trip I went on where I was leaving camp, it was in October, and there was a light snow. And earlier that morning, we’d seen one of the largest grizzly bears I’ve ever seen, he skirted the boundaries of our camp. And then a couple hours later, when we were leaving, he popped out of these willow bushes and spooked the whole pack string, and the whole pack string took off at a full gallop. I ended up holding my horse, but off of him, about 10 to 15 feet away from this giant grizzly bear, face to face. Thankfully, he wandered into camp, and was interested in exploring whether or not we’ve left any food behind and was not interested in attacking me. There’s just countless stories like that.
Dino Laudati, master
haircolorist, pictured
at his salon’s rooftop
in West Palm Beach,
Fla. (Pia Norris)
I am an immigrant. I grew up in poverty in post-World War II Italy. We had dirt floors and no running water or bathroom in the house, and we never knew where the next meal was coming from or what it would be. From the time I was 7, I worked at a gas station. I thank God that America gave me a chance to escape that life.
I came to America with my family when I was 16. I was upset about leaving my friends behind, but I had no choice. We lived in Springfield, Massachusetts: not a place I would have chosen, but much better than the place I left behind.
During my first month in Springfield, we experienced one of the worst snowstorms I had ever seen. While walking down the street on that Sunday, I noticed all the people—young and old—shoveling their driveways. Since I didn’t yet speak any English, I asked my friend to talk to the older people and find out if they would like us to shovel the snow for a couple of dollars. In 1968, $2 seemed like a lot of money. By the end of the day, when we stopped and counted all the money we had stuffed into various pockets, we discovered that we had made almost $30 apiece.
It was on that snowy Sunday that I became an American. In one short day in America, I made more than double what my father earned in a month doing construction seven days a week, 10 hours a day, in Italy.
Since that day, I did many jobs, both part-time and full-time, day or night. My father expected me to work a 40-hour-a-week job to help support the family: That meant I had to go to school during the day and work an eight-hour shift at night, usually from 10 o’clock to 6 o’clock in the morning. I worked in a match factory, a rubber boot factory, as a dishwasher, a janitor, and a hospital orderly. I did construction, framed paintings in an art gallery, and even sold vacuum cleaners from door to door. I was never out of work because America always offered an opportunity. Many times it was not what I wanted, but I did it anyway until something better came along.
Fortunately, I went to a trade high school where I took classes in carpentry, plumbing, electrical, and auto mechanics. When my sister took cosmetology, I thought it would be interesting to join her—especially since I would be the only man surrounded by pretty girls. Even though my sister withdrew, I enjoyed it and the instructor took a special interest in me: I seemed to possess a natural talent. When I graduated, I received the cosmetology award and an award in English. I knew that I could embrace not just a job, but a career that offered unlimited opportunities. With a pair of scissors and a comb, I could go anywhere!
With five years’ experience as a hairstylist, I married my wife, and the next morning, we drove to Palm Beach, Florida. Two years later, at the age of 26, we opened our own salon. A few years later, we had the hottest and busiest salon in Palm Beach. We also had two sons.
I took to my knees and thanked God for my wife, my sons, and for the success of our salon. But most of all, I thanked him for America. These are some of the words I prayed:
Lord, thank you for giving me America as an adoptive mother, and please bless my new mother. She took me in her arms, accepted me as her own, and offered me the same dreams, the same freedom, and the same opportunities she offered her native sons, with no limits, no questions, and no discrimination. God bless America!
(Courtesy of The Preservation Society of Newport County)
Quietly nestled along the Narraganset Bay, the Marble House was the first of the stone palaces to be built in Newport—transforming the quiet colony of wooden houses into a bastion of opulence. It would be called a “cottage,” in deference to the earlier shingle style summer residences. But in truth, this was a grand home “fit for a Queen.”
A French Affinity
Alva Erskine Smith was born in Mobile, Alabama, on January 17, 1853. She and her parents would spend summers in Newport, Rhode Island. During the Civil War, her family moved to Europe, and she attended a private boarding school in Neuilly-sur-Seine. Spending some of her formative years in the vicinity of Paris, young Alva became a Francophile (lover of all things French). She and her family eventually returned to America, living in New York. She married William Kissam Vanderbilt, a grandson of the patriarch Cornelius Vanderbilt Sr.
(Courtesy of The Preservation Society of Newport County)
Alva had built her “Petit Château” in New York with the help of architect Richard Morris Hunt. Now she engaged his services once more to create a “summer cottage” that would emulate the fine Beaux-Arts classicism she had admired in France. It would be the first truly grand classical mansion of Newport, Rhode Island. Hunt created for Alva a grand “temple for the arts,” as she called it. The design of Marble House was inspired by the Petit Trianon in Paris, a neoclassical style château located on the grounds of the Palace of Versailles. Construction began on the house in 1888. It would be a present from her husband for her 39th birthday.
In the late 19th century, the estate reportedly cost $10–11 million to build. Seven million of that was for the marble—500,000 cubic feet of it.
The Gothic Room was designed to display Alva Vanderbilt’s collection of medieval and Renaissance decorative objects. The stone fireplace in the room was copied by Allard and Sons from a fireplace in the Jacques Coeur House in Bourges, France. (Courtesy of The Preservation Society of Newport County)(Courtesy of The Preservation Society of Newport County)
Of Marble and Gild
Alva was known as a great entertainer, and she sought to build her own social status. For that reason, Alva collaborated with Hunt to create what became recognized as “one of the grandest ballrooms ever to be built in Newport.” If ever there was a ballroom that epitomized the Gilded Age, it would have to be the ballroom at Marble House.
The Ballroom was literally gilded: The elaborate architectural details of the room, first drawn by Hunt, are all covered with gold. Elaborate cornices, pilasters, archways, and panels of bas relief illustrating classical mythology are all covered with 22 karat gold. Above the relief is a 19th-century painting, in the style of the Italian Baroque painter Pietro da Cortona, of the Greek goddess Minerva.
Jules Allard and Sons, the noted Paris design firm, created the interiors for the house. The Stair Hall and its grand staircase, constructed of yellow Sienna marble, features an intricate wrought iron and bronze railing covered with gold. Copied from a railing in the Palace of Versailles, the railing is signed by Allard.
Inspired by the Palace of Versailles, the grand staircase in the Foyer was constructed of yellow Sienna marble and features an intricate wrought iron and bronze railing covered with gold. (Courtesy of The Preservation Society of Newport County)The Dining Room features pink Numidian marble, architectural details of gilded bronze on the walls and ceiling, and furniture of velvet fabric laced with metallic threads. (Courtesy of The Preservation Society of Newport County)
The opulent Dining Room is walled in pink Numidian marble with architectural details of gilded bronze. Its fireplace is a replica of the Salon d’Hercule (Hercules Drawing Room) in Versailles. The library is in the Rococo style and features carved walnut bookcases by furniture maker Gilbert Cuel, who worked with Allard to create the room.
Alva had a collection of Medieval and Renaissance objects and artwork, for which the Gothic Room was built. In contrast to the rest of the house’s Louis XIV and Louis XV décor, this Gothic-revival sitting room is modeled after the interior of a house in Bourges, France (built between 1443 and 1451 for Jacques Coer, a prosperous merchant). The room’s chimney piece, of Caen limestone, is modeled after the one in the Bourges house. The foliate (leafy) cornice was also inspired by the gothic French interior, but in deference to Rhode Island’s seaside location, crabs and lobsters are worked into the foliage.
The private quarters upstairs, where the family lived, are finished in the style of Louis XIV. William and Alva had three children. William K. Jr. is known for promoting the young sport of automobile racing. His brother Harold was a skilled yachtsman, successfully defending the America’s Cup on three occasions. Consuelo, the daughter, became the 9th Duchess of Marlborough, marrying Charles Spencer Churchill in 1895.
The Grand Salon (also called the Gold Room) served as a ballroom and was recognized as “one of the grandest ballrooms ever to be built in Newport.” The Gold Room features gold gilt paneling over wooden walls carved to represent scenes from classical mythology, inspired by the Apollo Gallery at the Louvre. (Courtesy of The Preservation Society of Newport County)(Courtesy of The Preservation Society of Newport County)
A Stage for Suffrage
Alva divorced William in March of 1895. She already owned Marble House since William had presented it to her as a birthday present and the deed was in her name. The next year she married Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont, and she lived with him at Belcourt (another mansion designed by Richard Morris Hunt in Newport) until his death in 1908. She then returned to Marble House and added an ornate teahouse, modeled after a 12th-century Song Dynasty temple in China. It sits at the foot of the Marble House lawn, above the Cliff Walk overlooking the ocean. The design was created by the sons of Richard Morris Hunt, who by that time had taken over their father’s firm.
It was here, and on Marble House’s rear terrace, that Alva began to hold rallies for a new passion. The woman who so ardently strove to bring her family into the realm of nobility now became a champion of women’s suffrage. The Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage used Marble House as its headquarters. Alva lived to see the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, which gave women the right to vote. Her daughter Consuelo had dissolved her marriage with the British Duke and was now living in Paris. Alva moved to France to be close to her and later died in Paris at the age of 80.
The Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage used Marble House as its headquarters. Picture of the National Woman’s Party at Mrs. Belmont’s house in Newport, R.I., 1914. Library of Congress. (Public domain)
Arizona Autism Charter School uses behavior therapy techniques to help children communicate their needs. (Courtesy of Arizona Autism Charter Schools)
When Diana Diaz-Harrison strolls the halls of her schools, she is reminded on a daily basis why she loves education. She has always loved kids. It’s what drew her into the education field in the first place. Her earlier self as a bilingual teacher in California could not have imagined her present self as an innovative leader in education. Today, she is the founder of a specialized public charter school system—the first of its kind: the Arizona Autism Charter School (AZACS).
AZACS is unlike the typical public school institution. It is a tuition-free charter school based on a nonprofit educational model for Arizona’s non-neurotypical students who have been diagnosed with learning differences. These children are thriving in a non-traditional classroom setting within her network of charter schools geared toward children with autism in Arizona. According to Harrison, about 25 percent of students are not autistic; however, they might have a speech delay or cerebral palsy, or they are wheelchair-bound students.
(Courtesy of Arizona Autism Charter Schools)
“It is hard to convince others about the growing trend of diverse student populations,” she stated. “These students need personalized learning, therapeutic services, and a small class model. And because there are so many diverse students, they need the services of AZACS.”
Harris first established a campus in 2014 for students in grades K to 5. Today, Harrison’s schools serve 725 students online and at three campuses in central Phoenix in grades K to 12. For post-secondary education, AZACS added a transition academy to assist students between 18 and 22 years old. Here, students can earn career and tech credits (CTE) while learning essential life skills and getting vocational training. And yet, spaces are continually being added to accommodate enrollment needs.
The work of AZACS attracted national recognition with Harrison winning the Yass Prize, an award established in 2021 to honor and support innovative alternatives in education. As the winner, AZACS will receive $1 million in prize money. Dubbed an education changemaker, Harrison has committed her passions, expertise, and tenacity in ways that improve the quality of life for many neurodiverse students in Arizona. “My goal is to help change the narrative, celebrate these students for what they can contribute to society. They are not a burden. We have to find the best ways to reach them,” she said.
The school is a tuition free charter school that aims to help children with autism explore their unique gifts. Below, Harrison at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the school’s post-secondary program focused on workforce training. (Courtesy of Arizona Autism Charter Schools)
Fighting for Those Like Her Son
And reach them she does. Harrison’s own son, Sammy, was diagnosed with autism when he was only 2 years old. She found it difficult to access personalized quality education at traditional public school institutions. Like many parents, she struggled to find an affordable private school that would work for her son. Soon after, Sammy had a transformative intervention through Southwest Autism Research & Resource Center (SARRC), renowned for providing the best behavior therapy for autism. It was a game changer. “Sammy started verbalizing and engaging with people other than me and attended other activities in a group setting. I was excited about school, and then when all of those strategies were not available in public school, I was baffled as to why there was hesitation to implement therapies that work.”
Harrison realized what was possible and decided to do something about it: start her own school for autistic children. With an emphasis on behavior modeling, Harrison’s schools depend on a robust team of dedicated personnel and behavior analysts. “Sometimes autistic kids are defined by challenging behaviors, but they are so much more than that. There are therapies that can help them overcome. These students are so brilliant in terms of their ability to connect with others, their desire to do productive things in their community, and they love people,” Harrison said.
She explained that with a 3:1 student-to-faculty ratio, they are able to master foundational skills in reading and mathematics. Shaping behavior is also essential, such as learning how to sit in a chair, make a proper request, or raise a hand to ask for help. Identifying communication deficits or behavioral challenges using applied behavior analysis (ABA) teaches students to better understand themselves; and, according to Harrison, these techniques are drilled into children early so that they learn how to deal with self behaviors properly—which reinforces desirable behavior in the classroom. Instead of screaming in a group environment, students are given token cards that help them communicate their needs.
(Courtesy of Arizona Autism Charter Schools)
“These kids need reinforcement with meaningful rewards to shape behavior. … Social emotional learning is what we do all along because kids need to feel comfortable and regulated,” Harrison said. The school’s next goal is to foster an environment for students to collaborate on projects. “They can tap into their interests to help them go into a deep dive,” she said. One such project was building a self-sustaining turtle habitat. Students researched what kind of tortoises would thrive in ideal conditions in their school environment, incorporating a variety of academic lessons. Not only is this way of learning meaningful and creative, but it’s also applicable to real-life passions on topics of interest to them.
Set Up for Success
Harrison endeavored to start a specialty school based on other schools in existence already: South Florida Autism Charter School helped her pilot the way, using a similar instructional model based on behavior therapy and a nonprofit structure. It proved successful. “It seems like we always outgrow ourselves due to need. We use a lottery process because we are the only charter in the state. We feel a huge responsibility to grow and keep up with demand and to help others start a similar school in their state,” Harrison said.
(Courtesy of Arizona Autism Charter Schools)
Her winning pitch for the national prize means additional funding to continue AZACS’s innovative mission. Middle and high school students will have greater access to project-based learning modules through Woz ED. Apple’s co-founder started the company to partner with schools around the country, with the goal of providing cutting-edge STEM curriculum. Whether it is to learn coding, understand computers, or fly drones, the science program equips students with training to get them into the workforce quickly after graduation. “The kids are flourishing. We are preparing them for highly sought after tech careers which they are uniquely suited to work in these fields,” Harrison said.
Winning the Yass Prize means that planned expansion in other Arizonan communities can now take place. Additionally, Harrison is eager to help build similar autism charters in other cities around the country. She intends to create a type of playbook, partnering with South Florida Autism Charter School, to offer specialized training and access to a toolbox of materials to create specialty schools in communities all over America.
AZACS’s learning opportunities will be able to offer their students better earning power after they graduate and become productive members of society. “We are changing the narrative to see themselves as problem-solvers who contribute instead of seeing themselves as special education kids who are disabled. It is fascinating to see them flourish with their unique thinking patterns—to see what they can do.”
If you ask what education means to people, most will think “school.” If they are jaded, “debt.” But for the first great American family, it was much more than this.
In his autobiography, “The Education of Henry Adams,” the author describes growing up within a celebrated lineage that, by his lifetime, had become a cultural institution. During his childhood, Henry wrote, he would often transition between the Boston home of his father Charles Francis Adams, Lincoln’s future ambassador to England during the Civil War, and the home of his grandfather John Quincy Adams, where he played in the former president’s library. Sitting at his writing table as “a boy of ten or twelve,” he proof-read the collected works of his great-grandfather John Adams that his father was preparing for publication. While practicing Latin grammar, he would listen to distinguished gentlemen, who represented “types of the past,” discuss politics. His education, he reflected, was “an eighteenth-century inheritance” that was “colonial” in atmosphere. While he always revered his forebears and felt they were right about everything, he observed that this learning style did not sufficiently prepare him “for his own time”—a modern age that was increasingly defined by technology, commerce, and empire.
Henry Adams is today considered one of America’s greatest historians. Given this, one would probably conclude that his education served him exceedingly well, even if he hoped to produce history rather than merely record it. The substance of his educational ideals was, when stripped of their luxurious trappings, very similar to that of our second and sixth presidents. Although this was precisely the problem for a young man growing up in a new industrial epoch, there is much to admire about this cultivated reverence for tradition. Values, unlike skill sets, do not become obsolete.
Graduation photo of Henry B. Adams from the Harvard College Class of 1858. Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston. (public domain)
A Father Teaches His Son
The wealth and privilege Henry Adams experienced was far removed from the boyhood circumstances of his most famous forefather three generations previously. John Adams was born in a simple farmhouse where the family’s only valuable possessions were three silver spoons. The key to his rise was education. Not only of the formal kind, but of character. John took inspiration from his descendants, “a line of virtuous, independent New England farmers.” When he complained of losing interest in his studies due to a churlish teacher at his schoolhouse, his father, a deacon, enrolled him in a private school. Later, the deacon sold 10 acres of land to pay for his son’s college fund.
John admired his father, striving to embody the qualities of sincerity and patriotism he instilled. He called the deacon “the honestest man” he ever knew and passed on these ideals to his own son, John Quincy Adams. While John was in Philadelphia attending the Continental Congress, he instructed young “Johnny” through letters. Writing to Abigail on June 29, 1777, he said, “Let him be sure that he possesses the great virtue of temperance, justice, magnanimity, honor, and generosity, and with these added to his parts, he cannot fail to become a wise and great man.”
In letters to John Quincy during this same year, John advised his son to acquire “a taste for literature and a turn for business” that would allow for both subsistence and entertainment. Reading the historian Thucydides, preferably in the original Greek, would provide him with “the most solid instruction … to act on the stage of life,” whether that part be orator, statesman, or general. While John was away, Abigail constantly upheld her husband to John Quincy as an example of professional achievement and courage. She encouraged him to study the books in his father’s library and forbade him from being in “the company of rude children.”
For the Adamses, books were not just the means to a career, but a key to unlocking the sum of a person’s life. Education encompassed experience, conduct, and social ties. Like his grandson Henry, young John Quincy was sometimes unsure whether he would be able to live up to his ancestors’ example.
John Adams, second president of the United States from 1797–1801. Official presidential portrait of John Adams by John Trumbull, circa 1792–1793. Oil on canvas. White House Collection, Washington, D.C. (public domain)
A Family Heritage
John instructed John Quincy more directly when taking him along on diplomatic missions in Europe. In Paris, John Quincy began keeping a daily journal at his father’s request, recording “objects that I see and characters that I converse with.” John Quincy observed his father staying up at all hours to assemble diplomatic reports and would later emulate this diligent work ethic.
He then accompanied John to Holland. At the age of 13, he “scored his first diplomatic triumph,” according to biographer Harlow Unger. The precocious young student, dazzling professors with his erudition at the University of Leiden, caught the eye of an important scholar and lawyer named Jean Luzac. John Quincy introduced Luzac to his father, then struggling to convince the Dutch government to give America financial assistance in its costly war with Britain. Luzac was impressed with the Adams family, advocated their cause of independence, and succeeded in securing crucial loans for the desperate young nation.
John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States from 1825–1829. Official presidential portrait by George Peter Alexander Healy, 1858. Oil on canvas. White House Collection, Washington, D.C. (public domain)
During this time, John Adams encouraged his son to continue studying the great historians of antiquity: “In Company with Sallust, Cicero, Tacitus and Livy, you will learn Wisdom and Virtue.” He closed his letter by emphasizing the importance of the heart’s authority over the mind: “The end of study is to make you a good man and a useful citizen. This will ever be the sum total of the advice of your affectionate Father.”
John Quincy, ever the obedient son, attended to both the wisdom of the distant past and his family heritage that enshrined it. While following in John’s footsteps as a diplomat, and later president, he would pass these values on to his own children.
The success, achievement, and public legacy of the Adams family has everything to do with this conception of education as a living inheritance. Writing over a century later, Henry Adams saw the role of learning as a lifelong endeavor that was difficult to justify through any specific practical or monetary measurement. But, he added, “the practical value of the universe has never been stated in dollars.”
Li Fan, an expert in baroque and early music, recently returned to playing the modern violin. It was a bigger adjustment than she expected, especially given her dynamic career in violin before taking up early music, and the experience prompted her to consider many things about the change of pace in music, culture, and life over the course of history.
“People [today] don’t have the heart to do a single, slow thing. In this mindset, we’ve lost some of the finer details. There’s a loss of sensitivity in this. We need more volume and power and speed to excite people,” Li said. “Now we need stronger sounds, bigger, brighter, and louder, more virtuosic. … I think this is very interesting.”
In the past few years, her career has in a way come full circle, her artistry deepened by a renewed understanding of tradition and faith.
Fated Encounter
After a decade of performing as a violinist in the orchestras of renowned ballet and opera companies in China, and recording numerous CD, radio, television, and film projects, Li turned her sights on Germany. Wanting to deepen her study of music, she went abroad. In a twist of fate, Li was introduced to early music and embraced it with open arms.
“What began as a fated encounter turned into a mission,” Li said.
Already 30, Li baffled administrators when she applied to German music conservatories. They would tell her that most of their incoming students were a mere 17 years of age and wondered what she was doing among them.
Li was accepted into a school, but was told that there weren’t enough teachers, so she would have to wait a semester before beginning classes. Homesick and tired of waiting, she decided to investigate whether there was some other class she could take.
“The first thing they asked me was how old I was,” Li said. She quipped that they must have found her old because they advised her to go learn old music. She was sent to the ancient music department where, finally, she was told to come back the next week and bring her instrument.
When Li returned, she was introduced to a whole new world of sound.
(Dai Bing)
Ancient Studies
“This instrument came to me, and I accepted it, studied it, understood it, its history and content, and appreciated the beauty of it,” Li said. She delved into not just early music, but also medieval art and culture.
“It’s very close to God—all the arts were about God,” she said.
During her studies in Germany, she took master classes with Ton Koopman, a conductor and renowned musicologist; John Holloway, a baroque violin expert; Anton Steck, a violinist and conductor; and Pedro Memelsdorff, a music director and musicologist specializing in medieval music.
She was a member of the Paradiso ensemble in Frankfurt and collaborated with La Stagione Frankfurt, the Free Dance Theater in Frankfurt, Maurice van Lieshout, Michael Schneider, the Mannheim court orchestra, and the Main Baroque Orchestra.
After graduating from the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts in Germany, Li furthered her postgraduate studies in historical interpretation with Petra Müllejans, the German violinist, conductor, and pedagogue renowned for her work in historical performance practice, and Li later became an assistant instructor for the professor’s master classes.
She also studied medieval and Renaissance music at the Schola Cantorum Brabantiae with Maurice van Lieshout and Rebecca Steward.
Li’s time in Europe was spent performing, in ensembles small and large, playing both old music and new premieres. She recorded a number of new CDs, including an album of Vivaldi’s works with the Capella Academia, and Telemann concertos with La Stagione Music Orchestra. She appeared in recorded live productions such as the DVD of Schauspiel Frankfurt’s 2009 Roter Ritter Parzival (Percival, the Red Knight). She became a founding member of ensembles Aquilla, La Pace, and the Allegris Quartett, touring in both Europe and Asia. Li was selected by the New Frankfurt Philharmonic to share the stage with artists including the beloved Andrea Bocelli and celebrity David Garrett.
“Then, returning to the modern violin—it just looked so fast,” Li said.
Reviving Tradition
Recently, Li accepted a position with the world-renowned Shen Yun Performing Arts. She was interested in both the company’s music and mission. A person of faith herself, she appreciated the fact that New York-based Shen Yun doesn’t shy away from faith and tradition.
“This is a very unique ensemble,” Li said. Though the instruments in Shen Yun’s orchestra are modern, and the music is newly written for each season, the music is traditional in composition from the standpoints of both the East and the West—ancient Chinese music arranged for a Western orchestra.
“We talk about reviving tradition—that’s not an easy thing, and not something you can just say casually. But we have to do it. We are doing it—in a way that is complex, harmonious,” she said. “The music is Chinese, and it’s not just pleasant to listen to, but also meaningful. It gives you a lot to think about. There is a story. … There is deeper meaning and a touch of the divine.”
In this space, Li felt she could take all the experiences gained in her life—the years spent playing music she felt was closest to God, the traditional Chinese culture she was steeped in during her upbringing—to fruition. In encountering Shen Yun, she gained a sense of mission.
“‘Reviving traditional culture,’ this phrase is something I think about all the time now, and it’s close to my heart. I’ve lived with early music for so many years in my career, and my upbringing was that of traditional culture,” Li said. “I felt I could really purely and simply focus on this mission.”
By this point in Li’s career, early music fit like a glove—a worn and comfortable one. She didn’t need to take up the modern violin again, whose metal strings and modern bow were sonic worlds apart from Li’s comfort zone. But Shen Yun’s mission so moved Li that she threw herself into practicing the violin again so as to achieve the level of world-class excellence required of the group’s artists.
During those first few months, Li felt like she was existing in a pressure cooker. But it was also a time that brought her a new understanding of faith, spirituality, and her art.
“I thought I had faith before—but it is truly strong now,” Li said.
(Dai Bing)
From Pressure, Diamonds
In encountering Shen Yun, Li also gained a renewed sense of faith.
Many of the artists in Shen Yun practice Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, as the founding artists had formed the company with a culture of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance—the three principles of the practice. It’s a spiritual, self-cultivation discipline that also includes five meditative exercises, including a sitting meditation.
So when Li met a member of Shen Yun for the first time, the idea that she could take up this spiritual discipline for herself was planted. In truth, Li’s husband also practiced Falun Gong, but in more than a decade of marriage, it wasn’t something Li had been interested in. His faith was his personal matter.
“For that first year or two, I did nothing but practice. But then I remember one day, I came in early, and before practice, I decided to meditate first,” Li said.
“Finally, I had some peace. And for some reason, the tears just came pouring out,” Li said. It was a turning point for Li’s resolve—in her mission, and her faith. And as she resolved to live her life by the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance, she gained a deeper understanding of art and music as well.
“Shen Yun evokes kindness in people. It prompts one to think about higher things, about what is true compassion and benevolence,” Li said. “True beauty and true goodness change hearts and minds.”
After a particular performance in Spain, Li remembered comments from an elderly woman who had been in the audience with her daughter. The woman’s husband had been a musician as well, and she was deeply moved by the music of the performance and spoke fervently to Li about the spirit of what they experienced.
“‘It was like we had given humanity a direction’—audiences will say things like this. They feel like they’ve obtained something greater than sensory enjoyment, but something that was positive for their spirit, that through cultivation of one’s character, one can have a better future,” Li said. “Of course, I’ve seen audiences who were moved before—but not like this.”
Li believes the art Shen Yun brings to audiences is the best, not because of the skills each member possesses, but because of the spirit they deliver to each and every viewer. Traditional culture is divinely inspired culture, and “what we’re bringing people is from from the divine, and that’s why it is the best,” she said.
Sonya Curry, educator and proud mother of three successful children, Steph, Seth, and Sydel Curry. (Nathan Mays)
Sonya Curry likens her family to The Big Machine. Every member of the family plays a part in helping the household run at maximum efficiency, with chores and activities on schedule for each. So when her eldest son Stephen Curry—who would go on to become the basketball star Steph Curry—failed to do the dishes one week during his high school sophomore year, there was no question that he would not be allowed to go to basketball practice—despite it being before an important game. Curry told her son’s basketball coach that he would be missing practice, which, according to the coach’s rules, meant he would not be starting the next game.
“I reminded Stephen so many times to do the dishes that I realized he was starting to rely on me to manage him. That’s not going to work. I have to train my kids to manage themselves. That’s what this is about. Yes, everyone has to do their part to keep the Big Machine running. At the same time, they have to learn to be their own managers,” Curry wrote in her recent book, “Fierce Love: A Memoir of Family, Faith, and Purpose.”
Sonya Curry and her son Steph Curry pose for a photo on the red carpet during a 2019 event in Oakland, Calif. (Kelly Sullivan/Stringer/Getty Images Entertainment)
Parenting for Curry meant having her children learn by making mistakes and learning that actions have consequences. Being the head of a private school in Charlotte, North Carolina, where she raised her three children, Steph, Seth, and Sydel, Curry knew that children must figure out the process themselves while parents guide them to the conclusion. Her approach is similar to the schooling philosophy she embraced as an educator: the Montessori method. Named after Italian educator Dr. Maria Montessori, the philosophy embraces a system of learning that measures success based on the creative potentiality of a child. According to Montessori, it would “activate the child’s own natural desire to learn.”
Curry first enrolled her two sons at a Montessori school when they were 3 and 5 years old. She was immediately impressed with how her sons, with different personalities, thrived in the same classroom while developing separate groups of friends. One day, the owner of the school approached Curry and asked her if she would be interested in running the school’s new satellite program for toddlers and kindergarten. Curry, with a degree in family studies and child development, agreed. She set up the new school on a piece of farmland.
This, she recalled, was the defining moment that led to her career in education.
After more than two decades at the school, she retired in 2017 and devoted her time to writing her book. Curry feels compelled to reach out to parents with sage advice: how to parent with ultimate success according to each individual child and his or her gifts. The bigger picture for Curry now is encouraging other parents in their roles of nurturing their children. “Hopefully the book keeps people talking about what they are doing as parents, to find support, and to offer support to others as a community.”
Curry with her children and grandchildren. (Courtesy of Sonya Curry)
Education Journey
Her journey into the realm of teaching began at an early age. She had a natural gift for teaching. At the ripe age of 10, she taught lessons to several neighborhood children in the trailer park in which she lived. Whether it was math, spelling, or reading, she commanded the class and the children respected her—like a real teacher. One particular experience led Curry to witness how education could transform someone. A neighborhood teen named Philip had developmental disabilities and did not know how to read. Curry took the initiative to teach him. Seeing someone struggle, she was drawn to be that teacher or coach who encouraged success. In retrospect, Curry says this was the only career she dreamed about and opportunities just presented themselves throughout the course of her life.
When she got the opportunity to open her own Montessori school, she didn’t need the Montessori certification to be an administrator. “But it is really hard to lead teachers and parents authentically unless you have had the training,” she added. She enrolled in an intensive training program for nine straight weeks in Baltimore, Maryland. Though it was difficult leaving her children behind, this was her opportunity to learn the Montessori method. “In Montessori, teachers are guides who allow the unfolding of the child that God created. Create an environment where the child will learn and then take ownership of that learning. Here we don’t tell them what the answer is; instead, we encourage them to find the answers.”
Raising a Family
Curry places a heavy emphasis on faith and spirituality, such as by giving God the first part of the day through praying devotions. The family attends church on Sundays and participates in the church community.
Training successfully for spiritual growth also means talking openly about hardships. Instead of sweeping problems under the rug, parents should have important conversations with children about the kind of impact any decision will have on others, she said. “Learn to give yourself some grace, and give grace to other people—and then try to correct or make things right,” she said.
(Courtesy of HarperCollins Publishers)
The Curry household frequently held family meetings to discuss schedules or hash out those tricky topics. Sometimes, the weekly meetings were replaced with a fun family outing. Family bonding is key for enduring difficult moments. She is grateful for them. “Fundamental life experiences are more about looking deeper under the surface so that you can glimpse down the road to the bigger picture.”
She recounts one such tough conversation when her daughter Sydel, at 14, wanted to attend a party where her crush was expected to show up. But the family rule was no dating until the age of 16. In an emotional outburst, Sydel told her she was the worst mother in the world. Curry then gave Sydel a choice. Could Sydel continue to live with her mother who respects her and protects her—or does she want to move out? It was a defining moment of parenting with fierce love. “Sydel needed to learn the valuable lesson of understanding her worth. She had to learn to protect her value because the world and other people aren’t going to,” Curry said.
Ultimately, Sydel apologized. Curry let her know that words are powerful and can hurt. It was a reconciling moment for the mother-daughter duo.
Curry says it’s inevitable for parents to make mistakes, but the key is to share openly with children about any challenges. (Nathan Mays)
Her children also taught her the importance of writing your own story—instead of listening to others tell you what your story should be. This teachable moment came with her middle son, Seth. At practice and in school, he would just go with the flow, wondering why he should put in extra effort. But Curry insisted that children should be challenged to do better, to do their very best. Despite her pleadings and many discussions with Seth, he would not take this to heart, until it came time for him to realize it on his own. Through high school and college, Seth learned to overcome the challenge of being in his brother’s shadow, and he came into his own through hard work. At Duke University, his basketball career thrived, and eventually, he made his way into the NBA. With Sydel too, Curry decided not to be pushy when she wanted to pursue volleyball and drop basketball—the known family sport—from her high school schedule. As Curry wrote in the book, “Make yourself the hero.”
Curry admits to not being a perfect parent. But she contends that that is part of the process. “My advice to parents is to give it 100 percent with intentionality every day. Nobody is going to do it perfectly,” she said.
Mike Rowe, America’s perpetual apprentice, has been giving viewers a front-row seat to our country’s dirtiest jobs for nearly 20 years.
The episodes of his show, “Dirty Jobs,” are a veritable archive of the various icky substances in earthly existence—sludge, slime, gunk, and grime—that he’s either had to clean, wade through, extract, or pick away at, often in the dirtiest, hottest, and smelliest of conditions.
Encounters with the animal kingdom are a category unto themselves. Given the close degree of proximity, these engagements are unpredictable: Rowe has gotten bitten by some creatures—ostriches, catfish, snakes, sharks—and gotten up close and personal with others—such as beavers, which he’s had to sniff to determine their sex.
OK, there are clean jobs, too. The yuck factor may be absent, but cue in the petrifying situations, such as scuba diving to the ocean floor and releasing fish blood and guts for “Shark Week.” (Don’t worry, Rowe was wearing a stainless steel chain-mail suit—which helps, he found out, when you’re being shaken like a rag doll by a group of sharks.) Or what about when he walked up 24.5-inch-diameter cables on the “Mighty Mac” bridge in Michigan to change light bulbs atop its towers, 552 feet up, only to realize that he was no longer safely clipped in?
But the stunts are not the point. The premise of “Dirty Jobs,” with no actors, no scripts, and no second takes, is all about showing America what it’s like to do a job that’s needed, a job that’s hard, and often messing it up in the process. The show ran from 2003 to 2012 and returned for a season in 2022. In between, it has never stopped airing.
In all, Rowe has performed more than 350 jobs, learning under the tutelage of hardworking Americans and having fun in the process.
Rowe is lowered into a manhole to perform a maintenance job. (Ben Franzen and MRW Productions, LLC)
Pop’s Wisdom
“Dirty Jobs,” as Rowe says, is ultimately a tribute to someone he was very close to: his grandfather, Carl Knobel.
Though he had only been schooled until the seventh grade, Knobel had built his own home and was a master electrician, plumber, steamfitter, pipe fitter, and welder—a master jack-of-all-trades.
“He saw great dignity in all jobs,” Rowe said. “He understood, intuitively I think, that we’re all connected to work, and the way we’re connected to where our food comes from, and where our energy comes from.”
Early on, Rowe was convinced he’d follow in his grandfather’s footsteps. He tried his hand at shop classes in high school, only to face an inconvenient reality: “I didn’t get the handy gene,” he explained.
His Pop gave him a dose of wisdom: “You can be a tradesman—just get a different toolbox, because what comes easily to me is not coming easily to you.”
So Rowe set off in a new direction—writing, singing, acting, and narrating. He belted out songs at the Baltimore Opera for years and worked the graveyard shift on the QVC home shopping network selling merchandise. He hosted an evening show on Channel 5 KPIX in San Francisco, a “cushy little job” that took him to downtown museums and Napa Valley wineries.
And then one day, his mom, Peggy Rowe, called.
She said, “Michael, your grandfather turned 90 years old today—and he’s not going to be around forever. And wouldn’t it be terrific if, before he died, he could turn on the television and see you doing something that looked like work?”
“It made me laugh because it was so true,” Rowe said.
Her message was delivered with love and humor, and Rowe, who was 42 at the time, decided to take it as a challenge.
Rowe goes deep into a Florida river to pour concrete, in order to preserve an old bridge. (Ben Franzen and MRW Productions, LLC)
The next day, with TV crew in tow, he was back in action—this time in the sewers of San Francisco, profiling a sewage worker. The footage, he said, was “inappropriate” for his show, but he put it on the air anyway.
Then, something interesting happened. Letters started pouring in, with messages like this: “Hey, if you think that’s dirty, wait ’til you meet my brother, or my cousin or my dad or my uncle or my grandfather or my mom. Wait ’til you see what they do!”
That launched a regular segment, “Somebody’s Gotta Do It.”
Rowe’s grandfather got to see one episode of it.
“He was very nearly blind by the time he died. He was 91. So, he knew I had gone into this direction … and I’d like to think he approved. I’m pretty sure he did,” Rowe said.
‘Groundhog Day’ in a Sewer
The segment eventually led to “Dirty Jobs.”
The Discovery Channel show meant being on the road for much of the year, lots of showers, and even a change of attitude.
“I’ll tell you, honestly, I had to humble myself when my mom made her off-the-cuff suggestion I’d been impersonating a host for 15 years,” he said. “I was pretty good at hitting my mark and saying my line and creating the illusion of knowledge where it didn’t really exist, pretending to be an expert.”
Looking back, Rowe says during those early days when “Dirty Jobs” was on the air, it was jarring for audiences to see a guy who didn’t have the answers but was willing to “look under the rock” and bring viewers along.
“I stopped being a host; I started to become a guest. I stopped being an expert and started to be a full-time dilettante,” he said.
“And so, to the extent people might trust me, or at least give me the benefit of the doubt, I think it comes from the fact that they’ve seen me try and fail for 20 years, they’ve seen me crawl through a sewer. And when you see a guy covered with other people’s crap, you know, that guy’s not gonna lie to you.”
Rowe gets dirty while helping to turn waste lumber into biochar, which is often used as fertilizer. (Ben Franzen and MRW Productions, LLC)
Challenging the Stigma
For the longest time, Rowe’s dream job was to host “The Daily Show.” He worked long and hard, with his eyes on the prize.
“They hired me twice to do that job. And each time, something went wrong—comically it just went wrong and didn’t work out.” He contemplated how close he had come. “But the truth is, looking back, not getting that gig was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Life had other plans for Rowe.
A few years into “Dirty Jobs,” the recession hit. People were asking where the good jobs had gone. And yet, Rowe knew, they were out there. On every job site where he set foot, he saw “Help Wanted” signs.
On Labor Day 2008, he launched the mikeroweWORKS Foundation, which was essentially a PR campaign for the millions of unfilled jobs desperate for skilled workers. Over the years, the foundation has given $6.7 million in scholarships to nearly 1,500 people with a strong work ethic and the desire to pursue a career in the skilled trades.
Through his show, Rowe was showing the public what it was like to be a skilled trade worker: that in between going to work clean and coming home dirty, they brought pride and passion to their work; kept America connected with good roads and infrastructure, happy with indoor plumbing, and warm or cool depending on the season; and in the process, made a pretty good living, too.
Still, there’s the perception that dirty jobs are not jobs worth doing. As to how to change it, “that’s the million-dollar question,” Rowe said, “and if there were an easy answer, we wouldn’t have 11 million open jobs right now, and 7 million able-bodied men between the ages of 25 and 54 not only not working, but affirmatively not looking for work.”
(Ben Franzen and MRW Productions, LLC)
To some extent, Rowe knows what doesn’t work: “Lectures, sermons, scoldings. Men my age standing on their porch, shaking their fist at the heavens, and complaining about Gen Z and millennials.”
“The real way to challenge these stigmas and stereotypes and myths and misperceptions is to hit them squarely on the head. You need to show people that you really can make six figures. You need to show people that a good plumber today can make as much as he or she wants, and you can set your own schedule,” he said.
(Ben Franzen and MRW Productions, LLC)
Now heading toward its 15th year, the foundation follows up with its scholarship recipients, documenting their successes, and Rowe shares their stories with nearly 6 million friends on social media.
“We can complain about the snowflake culture and the snowflake mentality, but we’re the clouds from which the snowflakes [came], and I think it’s incumbent on us baby boomers—the people who are my age—to hit the reset button. And we have to provide people with better examples of what success looks like.”
One example is Chloe Hudson, a welder at Joe Gibbs Aerospace in North Carolina. Her ambition in high school was to become a plastic surgeon, but a price tag of upwards of $350,000 was not appealing. Instead, she got a welding scholarship from mikeroweWORKS and now makes a six-figure salary.
“She’s living her best life,” Rowe said. “I talked to her the other day, and she’s like, ‘You know, I am kind of a plastic surgeon, except I’m not dealing with flesh and bone. I’m dealing with metal and steel and complicated compounds.’”
The road to prosperity doesn’t end at mastering a skill, either. For example, take a welder who hires an electrician, a plumber, and an HVAC worker. That becomes a $3 million mechanical contracting company—not bad for starting out with a $5,000 or $6,000 certificate.
Rowe added, “If you’ve mastered a useful skill, if you’re willing to think like an entrepreneur, and if you’re willing to go to where the work is—then I don’t think there’s ever been a better time in the history of the country to be looking for work, because the opportunities are everywhere.”
(Ben Franzen and MRW Productions, LLC)
Mike Rowe Gives Relationship (and Job) Advice
Mike Rowe gives relationship advice—why not?
Years ago, Rowe wrote a Facebook post, which made the rounds online, about a good friend of his. This woman had been single her whole life and could not understand why. She was attractive and successful. Rowe suggested a dating service but she said no. He suggested she branch out across town, and try the museums, libraries, bars, and restaurants there. She declined again.
He said: “You’re not only looking for your soulmate; you’re looking for your soulmate in your own zip code. You’ve got a long list of qualifications: what they should look like, how much money they should make, how they should dress, where they should be from. So you just got all of these obstacles that you’ve put between yourself and the person who you believe can make you happy.
“And we do the same thing with work. We identify the job that’s going to make us happy, get the certification or degrees that we need, line up the interviews, etc., [but] we’ve got it backwards. We ask kids to imagine the job they want, long before they’re capable of doing that, and really, in many cases, before they have a good understanding of what their actual abilities are.”
Just as it happened to him, “you might realize that the thing you prepared yourself for is simply not the thing you’re going to do.”
“Everybody wants job satisfaction, and everybody wants happiness in their personal life, but if you start your quest with the notion that there’s a dream job, and you can’t be happy unless you get that job, it’s going to be a hard road—just as it’s going to be very difficult to find happiness in your personal life if you think there’s only one person on the planet walking around who’s capable of making you feel that way.”
Everyone Rowe met on “Dirty Jobs” was passionate, but few were doing the job they had in mind when they were young adults.
As Rowe says: “Don’t follow your passion—bring it with you.”
