Wanted: A Full-Time Humanist

Folks in the cattle and timber town of Baker, Ore. (pop. 9,500), are darkly suspicious of technical consultants, social scientists and similar experts. That posed a seemingly insurmountable problem for a committee of local citizens who thought that Baker needed outside help to improve its economy and keep the young people from moving away. But the committee members remembered how well the town had received some University of Oregon students who had conducted a humanities project in 1972 in which residents of Baker were interviewed on the quality of rural and smalltown life. So the committee decided that the town needed a fulltime, live-in "humanist." Which is what? Dictionaries are of little use; the most applicable definition of a humanist was someone who is "devoted to human well-being." No matter. Co-Chairman Peggy Timm knew what Baker was after. A humanist, she said, is like an architect who "sits down with the family to discuss what they want in a house before designing it." In contrast, she said, a planner is analogous to a contractor who "takes somebody else's plan and builds the house even though it might not satisfy the family's needs or tastes."

The committee advertised throughout the Northwest. Even though the job definition was vague and the work would pay only $9,500 for six months, Baker received 30 applications. Some came from the kind of people that the town did not want: a "community-relations expert" and a "human-development specialist."

But others seemed to qualify, and last week Baker awarded the job to A. Kenneth Yost, 65, a retired teacher of written and oral communication at Oregon College of Education who had been active in community cleanup campaigns and charitable drives. Yost's first task will be to circulate among Baker's citizens so that he can find out their needs and tastes--before deciding how best to help them.

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