Just hearing about the OREO class at Shoshoni High School has many older graduates from around the region dreaming of taking a class like this for credit. OREO stands for Outdoor Recreation, Education & Leadership. Each of the words has equal weight, but the outdoor recreation appeals to many hunters, anglers, and outdoorsmen across the vastness of Wyoming.
Shoshoni High School Resource Officer (SRO) Jeff Gillett teaches the course.
Like many SROs, Gillett enjoys working with students rather than dealing with car wrecks, domestic violence, and arresting criminals, all things that police officers and sheriff’s deputies have to deal with on a daily basis.
Gillett’s day is much lower key. He works with Shoshoni students from kindergarten through their senior year. The district recognized his love of hunting, fishing, and the outdoors and brought his skills outside the badge into the curriculum with the OREO class.
If you ask the students, the class is a blast. Canoeing, archery, making lures, tying flies, learning how to cast a fly rod, and trips to the base of Boysen Dam to fish, along with camping trips for the middle school students, make the OREO class extremely popular.
So does Jeff’s personality. He is a law enforcement professional, but his laid-back manner, and patient instructional techniques appeal to kids from age 12 to 18 with ease.
Gillett has an associate’s degree in Outdoor Education and is in his second year teaching the OREO class.
“We tie flies, make lures, and had archery last fall,” Gillett said.
He was quick to spell his last name without the “e” attached to the largest town in Campbell County.
“They spelled it wrong,” he joked.
He currently has seven high school students in his OREO class.
“I’ve always been involved and passionate about the outdoors,” Gillett said. “It’s common ground.”
The class is more than shooting targets with arrows or trying to lure trout in on a fly or a spinner. Students learn life skills that could be the difference between triumph and tragedy in Wyoming’s often unforgiving outdoor climate.
“We teach fire starting, with flint and steel,” Gillett said. “We teach backcountry cooking with Dutch ovens and backpacking stoves.”
One of the more popular sections of the class is outdoor cooking. Anyone familiar with crab cakes knows how delicious they are. Gillett took it one more step, using trout instead of crab to create “trout cakes.”
“They were delicious, excellent,” Gillett said.
Like all Shoshoni CTE (Career and Technology Education) classes, instruction is focused on students’ future. OREO is no different.
Wyoming’s economy is presently energy-based, but before the oil wells, methane, coal, trona, and uranium mines, Wyoming was a tourist destination. Tourism is a major economic force in Wyoming and will only grow in the future.
Gillett and the administration of Fremont County School District 24 recognize that, and part of the OREO class is an exploration of possible careers in the Wyoming outdoors.
“All my life I’ve been a hunter, now I’m fishing,” OREO student Eli Ballard said. “Fishing is now one of my favorite things. My goal is to be a park ranger, or work for the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) or the forest service.”
Eli plans to major in forestry in college.
An intriguing part of the class is rod building.
Custom rod making is growing exponentially across the United States, with advocates building custom fly rods, baitcasting, spinning, and spincasting rods that fit the needs and requirements of the area they’re fishing.
Gillett works with rod blanks from Mud Hole Custom Tackle to teach the students how to make a fishing rod that is uniquely designed to fit their demands. A custom rod is a little added spice on the water when you’re casting a fly for trout or trolling for walleye on Boysen Reservoir.
The Wyoming State Parks Department at Boysen Reservoir has been a major supporter of the OREO class.
“Boysen State Park has been awesome letting us in there,” Gillett said.
What could be better as a high school student than loading up in a district vehicle and making the short 10-minute run to Boysen Marina in the afternoon on a mild winter’s day to cast a few lines into the water and battle with a big rainbow, brown, or brookie?
Not many students pay attention to course descriptions in the student catalog, but this one might catch the eye of a youngster bitten by the hunting and fishing bug.
”OREO is a hands-on, experiential course designed to equip students with the skills, judgment, and confidence needed for safe and responsible outdoor recreation. Through a progressive, skills-based curriculum, students develop technical competence, leadership ability, environmental awareness, and risk management skills applicable to both backcountry and front country outdoor settings.
“Students engage in a wide range of outdoor disciplines including archery, fishing and fly fishing, kayaking and canoeing, backpacking, bushcraft, shelter building, fire making, knots, backcountry cooking, navigation, and first aid/CPR. Emphasis is placed on safety systems, proper equipment use and maintenance, Leave No Trace ethics, and teamwork. Learning occurs through a combination of classroom instruction, skill practice, projects, and supervised field experiences.
“The course is aligned with nationally recognized outdoor education practices and incorporates outcomes consistent with National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) principles, including leadership development, decision-making, environmental stewardship, and expedition behavior. Students are expected to actively participate, collaborate with peers, and demonstrate responsibility for themselves, others, and the environment. Unsafe behavior is not tolerated.”
Gillett also teaches a middle school section of OREO that culminates with a three-day backcountry pack trip filled with fishing, hiking, and adventure.
Shoshoni, situated on the edge of Poison Creek as it flows into Boysen Reservoir and just a few miles away from some of the best Walleye fishing in the United States, and arguably the best trout fishing anywhere in the world on the Big Horn River, is ideal for a class like OREO.
The students enjoy the course, and are guided seamlessly into looking at outdoor recreation, possibly law enforcement in the game and fish realm, and range management in a fun, exciting, and unique way.