OROVADA - Most of the time when you talk to someone about their life's work and they tell you that they are heavy equipment operators on construction jobs, you would probably be talking to a man. Not so in the case of McDermitt Combined School alumni Michelle Muguira, who has spent her adult years working construction and handling heavy equipment, a career that she has loved!
Michelle's paternal grandfather, John Muguira, immigrated from Nachitua, Viscaya, Spain, in 1907. He worked as a sheepherder for Ralph Jones in Wieser, Idaho, until he moved on, making a permanent home in McDermitt. His wife Dolores (Bengoa), immigrated from the same area, settling in Winnemucca at the age of 20. After they were married they continued to live in McDermitt and started their family with Michelle's dad Cleto, being the youngest of four. Due to Dolores' health problems the four children spent time with other family members as they were growing up. Cleto lived with his Uncle Angel and Aunt Candida Abotiz on the small ranch north of McDermitt where he still lives today. He did leave the ranch for a while and graduated from Winnemucca High School in 1946 (some 10 years before McDermitt had a high school) followed by Links School of Business in Boise, Idaho, around 1950.
In 1949, Don and Lois Grubaugh, Michelle's maternal grandparents, moved from Klamath Falls, Ore., to the little Oregon community of Arock, about 75 miles north of McDermitt. Her granddad farmed his own land while working for the Water Irrigation District and for over 20 years, drove the school bus for the little school at Arock. Her grandmother was a ranch wife and Michelle's mom, Charlotte, grew up there. Charlotte graduated from Jordan Valley High School in 1961 and moved to the little ranch on the Oregon side of McDermitt when she and Cleto were married. Michelle was born in Reno in 1968.
Michelle says that her main memories of the ranch as a preschooler, were of older siblings teasing and being mean to her!! She also remembers Janet Echave who lived on a ranch further up the canyon, driving her along with several other kids to the head start program. She attended kindergarten in McDermitt after which she and her mom went to Brigham City, Utah, for a time.
Michelle completed grade school in Utah, coming home to the ranch in McDermitt during her summers. She said the winters along the Wasatch Mountains were very cold and very snowy! Though she still has lifelong friends there it seems that she wasn't sorry to leave, after her freshman year of high school from a class of about 2,000 kids, when she and her mom returned to the high desert ranch with a slightly milder climate!
Barb (Honkomp) Hereford was her basketball coach at McDermitt and she played volleyball as well. She has only good things to say about teachers Darlene Albisu and Amarita Maher whose classes she enjoyed. An aide for Sue Russo's class, Michelle found her to be a compassionate teacher with a lot of patience. She says that while both of her high schools had positive things, after the huge class in Utah, McDermitt seemed like a big family, all willing to help whenever they could. She liked it that everyone could participate in any of the school activities that they wanted too! Cleto was working at the McDermitt Mine then and Michelle would get up early in the morning to help feed their livestock before he went to work and she went to school. She also worked part time at the Chevron Station in town, for Lee and Marge McDonald.
Karen Echave was her class advisor and the kids worked hard to raise money for their class. Besides the usual fundraisers such as bake sales they put on a Junior Rodeo in the summer. It all paid off when 12 members of her class of 15, along with six chaperones, traveled to Hawaii after graduation for a senior trip. Although she found the humidity high - all the water was impressive. They got to see all of the sights, and even toured a submarine!
After graduation she went to Boise State for one semester before going to the University of Idaho in Moscow, which she thought to be a beautiful location, with Kristen Echave the second term. At the end of the year she decided that school was not where she wanted to be, at least at that time, and took a couple of odd jobs in Utah. Coming back to McDermitt she began her life's career when she started flagging for the highway construction that was under way. She was working with some friends of her dad's who encouraged her to think past flagging if she wanted to make "good" money. They taught her to be a crusher oiler, and the crusher operator in turn taught her to run the crusher! Her developing skills - she can handle graders, concrete spreader trucks, haul-packs or uke's; water trucks, run the roller, operate a rotor-mill (kind of like a rotor-tiller only 25 times larger) and the STB plant - made it easy to get a good job, and she began working on construction jobs in Oregon.
The next few years she would work construction in the summer months and go back home to McDermitt to help feed cows during the winter. She enjoyed her jobs in Oregon- sometimes they were in area's that involved nice resorts such as Crater Lake and Diamond Lake and it was nice to get to stay at them. It was rewarding when a new road was finished- the grade and stakes set, the grader work done and the new pavement laid. She would spend the weekends traveling to the ocean and other places where she could enjoy her favorite pastime of fishing and she marvels at all of the agriculture that is located close to the city of Portland. She found that there is all kinds of fresh fruit and vegetables as well as some large sheep and cattle ranches located next to the densely populated urban areas surrounding the city.
Several years ago she hired on at the Basque Station about 20 miles north of the ranch that she likes to call home. Winter's find her driving snow plows, going back to the ranch to help feed during off hours. Summers there is always road construction - repairing or rebuilding worn-out stretches of road and it is nice to complete the work and have the travelers happy with you again!! Now she is doing a bit of construction of her own to fix up the buildings on the ranch. She and her dad built a new barn this past year and she is replacing worn-out corals and old fences a bit at a time.
She plans to stay with ODOT until she can retire and looks forward to spending her retirement years on the ranch. Michelle believes that if you have a piece of property you have "everything." She has empathy for the people that she was exposed to in the cities who lived under a bridge or ate from dumpsters, and is glad that in her little corner of the world no one is going to starve!
As someone who sets achievable but flexible goals for herself she would tell the students at McDermitt, "Set realistic goals for yourselves and stick with them even if you need to adjust them a bit sometimes. Success shouldn't be measured just by academic degrees or financial status but whether you are taking care of yourself and are responsible for the people and the things that you are in charge of. Pick a career that you love and whatever that job is - take pride in it and do the best that you can. Last - take time to enjoy your free time- maybe like 'GOING FISHING'!!"
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