Just When I Needed You by Deborah Fisher

Author:Deborah Fisher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Search Institute Press
Published: 2012-10-24T00:00:00+00:00

Becky Judd relocated to Alaska 20 years ago when she was recruited to teach Inupiaq Eskimos how to kayak. As part of her work for the state, she and her best friend, Derek Peterson, helped launch a statewide initiative to bring the Developmental Assets framework to Alaskan communities. She also helped establish the Spirit of Youth organization, which creates and promotes opportunities for youth engagement across Alaska.

DAMEON WILLICH

Becoming That Hero

By the time he was sent to work for Chuck Wolf, 14-year-old Dameon Willich had already been trained by some of the best horsemen in the country. Dameon had been riding horses since he was four, when he was first put atop a little paint by his mother. He hated horses at first, but his mother loved them, and since his older brother was allergic, he was the one chosen to ride. She hoped Chuck could teach her unruly teenager something about hard work and the horse industry.

Chuck Wolf ran Bridle Trails Stables in Kirkland, Washington, and subjected Dameon to an old-fashioned, almost medieval-style apprenticeship. The boy lived with Wolf ’s family during the spring and summer months, working alongside Chuck’s own kids from sunup to sundown, just like everyone else in the horse business. Chuck’s business was to buy unbroken, green horses down in Oregon and bring them back to be trained and sold. The faster the better in order to turn a profit.

“I look back now and realize the things I learned working for that man,” says Dameon. “I had been trained by some of the best professional horsemen in the world, but Chuck was more like an old-time cowboy horseman. You learned things from him that you wouldn’t learn in the showring, like how to break, train, and turn out a horse in 90 days. He would make me do menial tasks over and over again so that repetition became instinctual. I was a lot like some of those headstrong horses in those days and too rebellious at the time to appreciate the lessons I was learning, but he really taught me a lot about life and the way you needed to take pride in the work you do.”

Dameon performed, competed, and won awards on horseback. When he wasn’t living with Chuck’s family, he was at home, going to school, and trying to follow in his older brother’s footsteps academically. The two often fought, their personalities clashing, and Dameon didn’t get along with his stepfather at home, either. He started holding back money from his winnings and giving it to a friend for safekeeping until he could afford to have the friend buy him a motorcycle. At age 15½, Dameon left home to strike out on his own.

During his time on the road, he fell in with a group of bikers, who, like Chuck, took an interest in helping him. “They kept my nose to the grindstone to a certain degree. Whenever we’d stop long enough in one place, they always made sure I went back to school.”

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