Sunday, January 24, 2016

Duckwater Community Projects 1983-85: Physical Education: Duckwater Shoshone Tribal School

When you work for a small community, you become involved any many different activities.  On of those was helping the Duckwater Tribal school with recreation.  I had experience with community recreation in Hyrum, Utah where I grew up.  I also drew lots from materials I borrowed from Clyde Buff, who had graduated in recreation from Utah State University.  I too had taken a class in this topic.
My first year in Duckwater I was pressed for some consistent things to do.  As a result I volunteered for doing physical education at the Duckwater Shoshone School.  Usually I would try to fill the time with activities.  These were games and activities I found in a large book Clyde had from school.  We played some pretty fun games.  One of the favorite was "pomp" a game I played growing up in Hyrum.  We went through lots of games, and then picked the ones we liked best.  We played a crab walk soccer and chase games, and pomp became a favorite.  He also did several different types of relays.  We also played freeze tag.  During the winter we had the use of the tribal gym.  During the summer we played outside.  Then we played softball.  We also played soccer and tag.
One year Jan Halstead helped sponsor an American Lung Association Olympic marathon.  This event was a joint County School and Tribal School event.  The kids took pledges and then participated in several different Olympic type events.  These included broad jump, Frisbee throw and a short dash.  I helped train the kids and then participated as a judge for some of the events.
Another joint event was a jump rope-a-thon.  Jan also helped sponsor this.   Some of the kids took part in this as well.  We had fun in P.E. jumping rope and practicing for this.  Rondee Graham, one of the younger children, was a very good jump roper.  When we did the jump-a-thon groups of four would take turns so one of the four would be jumping all the time.

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