The U.S. Army got a new bunch of recruits Wednesday.
True, they were a little young. And they won’t be heading off to fight in the wars any time soon.
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FORT LARAMIE – The U.S. Army got a new bunch of recruits Wednesday.
True, they were a little young. And they won’t be heading off to fight in the wars any time soon.
These recruits were fourth graders from Lingle-Fort Laramie Elementary School and they swore their oaths of allegiance to be soldiers on the frontier of Wyoming in the 1870s. It was all part of the annual student tours of the Fort Laramie National Historic Site in western Goshen County.
Fourth-graders from around the region have been making the annual pilgrimages to the site, which served as the beachhead for western expansion, for more than 50 years. Steve Fullmer, now a National Park Service ranger who’s served at the site for more than 30 of those years, got his first introduction to the Fort Laramie experience as a fourth grader himself on one of those tours.
“I fell in love with the park in the fourth grade, on one of those field trips,” Fullmer said. “I can’t pinpoint one thing. I remember the sights, the sounds, the smells – the whole sensory experience.”
It’s more than just giving the students part of a day off from the day in, day out of classes. The Wyoming educational curriculum mandates the in-depth study of the state’s history begins in earnest in the fourth grade. And, with arguably one of the most famous, most influential sites in history right in their own back yard, the visits to Fort Laramie fit in perfectly with the curriculum.
“We make it a priority to bring students out here for their study of Wyoming history,” said Eric Valencia, chief of interpretation for Fort Laramie. “Parks are classrooms. (The National Park Service) has evolved and it continues to evolve to make education a priority.”
This year, as in years past, the students began their day with a brief talk by one of the rangers who work at Fort Laramie. They learned about the 12,000-plus year history of the Fort Laramie region, from the earliest Native American people who called the area home, through the fur trappers, Mormon and Oregon trail settlers winding their way westward through the area to the military history of the fort in the latter parts of the 19th Century.