After I returned from my mission in January 1989, Cade and I spent one week in Butte, Montana, at a school run by the Sheep Shearer's Merchandise and Company. Our tuition for the week-long class included a shearing handpiece.
After we graduated from the school, we both got jobs working for Jimmy Hoopes on his shearing crew. We joined the crew while they were working a job in Twin Falls, Idaho. We worked on the crew from early February through June 10. We sheared sheep in Idaho, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming.
Jimmy owned a six-stall shearing trailer (we called it the shearing plant) that he pulled from ranch to ranch. The sheep would walk up a ramp into the shearing plant. We would pull them from the chute to shear them. Then we released them out the back door of the plant.
We worked 12-13 hours per day, 7 days per week. The only days we did not work occurred when it rained. If you shear sheep while it is raining, the wool will be wet and must then be dried before it can be bagged/stored for market.
 |
| me shearing Delora Bertleson's sheep Spring 1994 (Jamie and Walden watch) |
Dad first taught me to shear sheep the summer I was 14. We were shearing Kent Nield's sheep. That first day, I worked hard all day and only sheared 5 or 6 sheep. It was hard work. After that, I sheared with Dad each year. I eventually got good enough to shear 2-3 per hour.
When Cade and I finished working for Jimmy that spring, I was good enough to shear about 80-90 sheep per day. Because Jimmy paid us $1.30 per sheep, I needed to shear 77 per day to earn $100 for the day.
When Annette and I were at BYU, Annette worked in the MBA office. At the staff Holiday party in 1990, Annette and I sat at the same table as Delora Bertleson. Delora worked in the dean's office and was the person who managed the accounting for the MBA program. She was also the Mayor of Springville, Utah. During dinner, she mentioned that she owned 5 or 6 sheep. As a result of that conversation, I ended up shearing her sheep for the next three years.
.jpeg)