Title:  The formation of an S.U.U. Living American History coalition (club)

Trent Taylor

A group of individuals dedicated to our counties’s past. People learning about our history, by living our history, by reinactments of life and events from the past, such as; Civil War battles, Revolutionary events, fur trade reinactments, and possibly some cowboy action shooting events.

Any S.U.U. student (with any major) , Any student spouses, relatives, children, etc., who loves history and fun. Also, anyone who is interested in learning things from the past through hands-on experience ( making clothes, firearms, knives, etc. that were being used during the period studied). Faculty also welcome.

Anyone with the intestinal fortitude to get involved will (should) benefit from such a club, plus, anyone involved with the club could share their knowledge with their spouses, neighbors, friends, and their posterity (or future posterity)

When this project first started, I contacted Brady Robinson, Booshway (president) of the Iron Mountain men Inc., And was told that if I needed any help the club would be glad to pitch in. But, as I struggled to get a date set for my presentation, I was not able to utilize the Iron Mountain Men as A resource.

As the semester went on, I talked to many other people about helping out; such as Ralf Robinson, of Parowan, Ut. whom said that if I could get a date set enough in advance that he would help out. The same applied for Willard Wood, of Cedar City, Ut.. But, once again my "slackerishness"got the best of me, and when it came time for the "big day", none of the above could get time off work to help.

Also contacted was Nationally renowned Indian Quill worker Sean Webster, but he had prior arrangements and could not make it.

I was finally able to track down Larry Bilyeu, A.K.A. "White Raven", who has been doing fur trade reinactments for about 25 years, has been adopted into the Crow nation (native American),and has been through many of their initiation ordeals and ceremonies, including the sweat lodge.

With Larry’s schedule, we could only plan one week in advance, so, on March 28, after a graveyard shift at Valley View Medical Center, Larry was able to come and help me out.

Some other contacts also needed to be made. On March 25, I contacted the S.U.U. activities commission, and was bounced from office to office (three or four times) before finally finding Chris Gale, who is over grounds. Mr. Gale gave me permission to set up my presentation on March 28, on the lower quad, in front of the library.

To begin with, I spent about two hours on the telephone with my various contacts.

I have spent countless hours making clothes, knick-knacks, black powder rifles, bows, arrows, knives, beadwork, and leather products, all of which were used in my presentation.

It took about two hours to find every thing at home, and get it all ready for the display on the following day.

On presentation day, it took about an hour to set up my tent, with the help of Jamie Gifford, Michael Neilson, and one of Jamie’s friends.

It took around another forty five minutes to unload all my things and arrange them for display.

About two hours later, Larry Bilyeu showed up and it took about another forty five minutes to get his stuff unloaded and set up.

We stayewd set up until 3:00 p.m. (Started at 7:00a.m.), talking to students and faculty about what we were doing, and doing some demonstrations.

Over all, I think taht I have about thirty hours into this project, and more to come, as there are still a lot of things to be done if we want to have this club up and running in the fall.

From March 1st to March 24th, 2002 I spent considerable time on the telephone, trying to line up some help.

On March 24, I created and printed about two dozen flyers, and dispersed them througout the campus of S.U.U.

Also on March 25, I was given the runaround and finally given the permission from Chris Gale to do my pressentation.

On March 26, I wrote a mass e-mail on the list server to our class and had proffessor Mulderink announce the project to the class.

On March 27, preparations were made at home for the following day. March 28, finall looding of things into my pickup began at 6:00 a.m.

7:00 a.m. arrived at S.U.U. and began by setting up my white wall tent, with the help of Jamie Gifford, Michael Neilson, and one of Jamie’s frineds.

Througout the day, studends (and some faculty) came by and asked questions which we answered.

At 11:00 a.m. Larry Bilyeu showed up and we unlooded his stuff. We also set up a knife and tomahowk throwing demonstation at this time.

At 1:00 p.m., a reporter from the school (S.U.U.) Newspaper showed up; He took a couple of pictures of Larry and didn’t interview anybody.

At 3:00 p.m. we started taking down our display, and S.U.U. Chanel 9 showed up and interviewed me for the evening’s news.

In order to do reinactments right, most of tools and goods (clothes, weapons, ect.) Are made by hand, without a lot of modern technology. However, the world wide web offers a plethera of websites and pages with tips, patterns, and information on reinactmets, ranging form colonial times, to the U.S. Civil war.

This project was connected to my project form fall semester 2001. In fall 2001, I tried to get this thing going via the internet and word of mouth. I got into trouble for "spamming" on the internet , and word of mouth just didn’t happen, so I decided to try a different approach this semester and let people see what we are all about.

This semester’s project has been a lot more successful than before, we had a sign-up sheet for interested parties who may wish to be part of a club and try reinactments. We recieved about twenty-two names, phone numbers, addresses, and e-mail addresses, which I felt was really good considering that we set up our display on Thursday before a four-day weekend (Easter) and a lot of the student body had already left.

The next step is to find a faculty advisor who is willing to help us get started in the fall of 2002. With the names of those who signed up, we should have good support for next eyar.

I feel this project to be successful! I have learned that there are younger people who are interested in reinactmant, so that we might be able to keep it alive for future generations.