By the Horns
“He’d never been around it. Had never been around cattle. He couldn’t have told you what end to feed and what end to kick.”
Pastor Jordan Weaver of Oregon’s 1017 Project, which helps battle food insecurity by providing roped-out steers to community food banks, offers a little background on Jason Graham, a member of the church who simply showed up one day and decided he wanted to help out at the team roping practices.
Graham, 51, was no cowboy. Rather, he was an acclaimed welder who committed to working on a ski resort kitchen line one day a week to get a season pass for his whole family, which included his wife, Sheri, and three sons, Taylor, Conner and Mayson. He caught the mountain life bug and realized he could still provide for his family if he could get a position with the ski lift maintenance team. He set to work.
“This place was year-round,” Graham explained about the work opportunity. “Those were not the top-paying jobs, but they were sustainable income for a father—a husband with a family. So, I bugged the lift manager for, geez it was probably a year. Every Friday. Finally, he was like, ‘You’re late. I was expecting you here for lunch.’ But every Friday, I’d go, and I’d say, ‘Hey, you got a job?’”
Graham’s persistence paid off. At first, he was given a position as a lift
