COLORADO—After being away for nearly a year, it was a bittersweet day when Angel McKown stepped back on the Boxelder Job Corps campus on Feb. 26, 2021. Like all Job Corps students, McKown had to return home in mid-March 2020 when Department of Labor officials made the hard decision to close Job Corps Centers to ensure the health and safety of students and staff. Boxelder Job Corps Center sent its students home, but quickly pivoted to distance learning, in which McKown enrolled, to continue its students’ education. McKown previously shared her experiences in June 2020 and August 2020.

In the next few weeks, after earning her GED, McKown will leave the center again, this time to set up a nursery for the baby girl she’s expecting in June. McKown was enrolled in facilities maintenance and she is optimistic but pragmatic about her future. Her instructor has indicated that she is welcome to return, but Boxelder does not provide childcare. If McKown wants to complete her vocational training, she will have to enroll in a center unaffiliated with the Forest Service that provides childcare.

In the meantime, McKown has found support and encouragement among her Boxelder family. She’s shared her news with her closest friends on-center, who, along with the instructors, she’s been able to lean on during this transition to the next phase of her life. “My teachers—Miss Bonnie, Miss Zelda and Miss Kimberly—here have been phenomenal and super supportive,” said McKown.

Because of her pregnancy, Boxelder’s strict COVID-19 safety protocols are especially reassuring to McKown. “We’re not allowed in each other’s room, only eight students are allowed in a classroom and, although we can eat in the dining hall, only two students are allowed to sit at a table,” said McKown. “When I was in quarantine, the teachers put names on chairs in the lounge area like, ‘Screaming goat wants you to stay six feet away,’ to make social distancing easier.” McKown sanitizes a lot and keeps her distance from others while she focuses on her studies.

McKown has named her little girl “Madalyn Rose” and is determined that her child’s path in life will be less difficult than her own. McKown was raised by her mother and stepfather but carried her biological father’s name. “His family did not have a good reputation in the community. Although I was not part of that, the stigma was also put on me,” she says. McKown is in the process of adopting her stepfather’s name, which will also be her daughter’s last name. “I don’t want Maddy to have the kind of burden I did.”

“Angel is so optimistic and full of wisdom. I’ve talked with many of my past students who had kids at a young age, and it has been amazing to see how they have been successful, ” said Boxelder Job Corps Academic Manager Bonnie Fuller. “It seems that by the parents finishing their diplomas at Job Corps, it made them more determined that their kids go to college, which is very uplifting.”

McKown’s parents have been supportive and she will live with them when she returns home. Her mother was initially shocked but then quickly said, “OK, we will figure it out.” Her father has offered her a job on a night crew that provides janitorial services to local stores. McKown is confident that, down the road, her dad will help her find a job and career that she will like. When asked what advice she’d give the world after the social turmoil and the coronavirus of the past year, McKown reflected.

“I would advise that we all need to keep our heads high and keep positive attitudes. If we have negative attitudes, life is not going to get easier—just worse," she said.  “Everything will turn out for the better.”