That's So Old School — Occupy Home, Work and Community

Westcliffe, Colorado | Friday, June 5

In our two little towns in our big Mountain Valley, there is an old stone schoolhouse that was built during the Victorian Age. The building was restored in the 1980s and is home to Valley Parks and Recreation, which serves both of our towns. In 1996, I was hired by Stan and Irene Francis to run the Parks and Recreation programs for the summer. Since then, thirty years of youth have graduated from Custer County High School, gone off to college, found careers, and moved on.

As I have returned to the Valley, I have been curious about the intersection of time, talent, and treasure — and how that intersection has affected the Old School, Agrarian Education, and the technological and economic needs of our community. In 1996, online education, crypto security, artificial intelligence, and student loans were foreign languages to the Class of 2026.

On the PBS NewsHour, there has been a nightly montage of commencement speeches. Any time Artificial Intelligence was mentioned — at Ivy League or bush-league schools alike — howls and boos came from the graduates about to receive their diplomas. On the other side of the coin is a Hybrid model (and I'm not talking about cars).

During the Great Depression, this commonwealth weathered drought and floods, surviving the Depression better than many places — and keep in mind, this was after the Industrial Revolution. While New York had tent cities in Central Park, there was a surge in living off the land on the family farm. Those who had left the farm to seek opportunity and education migrated back to the farmhouse.

Homestand: Because We Need You

"They came home," writes Wendell Berry, "because at home they still had families who were growing a garden, milking the cow, raising chickens, fattening hogs, and gathering their cooking and heating fuel from the woods. Now a century later, where there are no farms or ranches to go to — what will they become and where will they go?"

Berry wrote this in the 1980s. In between, we have seen Occupy Wall Street, student uprisings, and immigration raids. We have also seen rural communities that desperately need the next generation of farmers, ranchers, and entrepreneurs to innovate and help face the challenges of raging forest fires, flood damage, dust storms, and climate change.

Create Home — Work and Community

At Valley Parks and Recreation, we offer Baseball, Softball, Tennis, FlingGolf, Soccer, Wiffle Ball, and some old-school favorites. Starting this summer, we will host Schoolhouse Coffees — community events featuring Agrarian Voices from The Berry Center. We are also partnering with Custer County Schools to launch Emergent Education, a program that fosters the next generation of entrepreneurs. Concurrently with their high school diplomas, students will earn their Associate's Degree and certifications.

This model is already being implemented in Trinidad and Florence, Colorado, and more famously across Europe, where students solve real problems by starting businesses, creating products, and serving their communities. In the European model, each student starts and grows five businesses across seven countries.

"Some people look at the world as it is and ask, 'Why?' I dream of things that never were and ask, 'Why not?'" — George Bernard Shaw

Beattie Communications Studios

Richard Arnold Beattie is a communications entrepreneur and CEO of Beattie Communications Studios, a singer-songwriter, and President of the Colorado Chapter of the Leadon Family Foundation, Sound Century Academy of Recording Arts and Broadcasting, and Valley Parks, Recreation and Youth at The Old Westcliffe Schoolhouse.

Join him in forming TAG Teams — Think and Action Groups — being organized in communities across Colorado. Advisory Boards are forming in the communities we serve, spanning Recreation, Education, Arts and Media, Travel and Transportation, and Fostering Entrepreneurship at home, through work, and in communications.

For more information on launching, learning, and landing through All Generation resources, email richardbeattie809@gmail.com.