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 Summer Hire Perspectives, Part II – BPR, 1963-1965 

 From an Email from Scott Rustay, August 2009 

Spending five summers as a temporary with the Bureau of Public Roads, Idaho Division, Scott 

Rustay had some choice experiences. He writes that “the facts may have been stretched 

somewhat, but I think the narrative doesn’t stray too far from what actually happened!” 

For Scott Rustay, after two years with the Bureau of Public Roads, there was no 

question about where he would work the rest of his summers while going to school at Boise 

State. For the third year in a row, he hired on as a summer temporary for June through 

August 1963. Continuing as a GS-4 civil engineering technician, he was assigned to the 

Cascade-Warm Lake Highway project near Cascade, Idaho. 

That summer, Scott had an apartment to himself which he rented from a Judge in 

Cascade. “My only company was a tap-shoe wearing mouse who used to scamper across the 

linoleum floor every night after I turned the light out.” 

The Project Engineer was Gordon Mead, and he headed up an interesting crew, Scott 

said. “There was no love-loss between Gordon and Contractor, McGregor Triangle.” He 

recalled one weekend when “Gordon drove out to the job...and spotted the contractor burying 

brush under a big fill. He didn’t say anything until later when the fill was completed, and 

then he gave the Contractor an offer he couldn’t refuse: Take the fill back out.” 

The cost would be McGregor’s, the P.E. told them, if any brush was found. If the fill 

was clean, the Government would foot the bill. “I don’t think the Contractor ever figured out 

how Gordon knew about the brush,” Scott said. 

He also remembered a particular Party Chief on the project “who loved hunting 

cougars and spent all his spare time training his tracking dogs. Rumor had it that he would 

catch stray cats and throw them to his dogs to make them meaner! Given his 

Work on the Wayan-Freedom Highway, 1961. 

WFLHD Archives. 

personality, this seemed quite possible to 

me.” 

 The next year, 1964, Scott was 

hired as a GS-5 and assigned to a project 

on the southeast Idaho state line, the 

Wayan-Freedom Highway. Emory Waller

was the Project Engineer, and “much to 

Emory’s dismay, we began the summer 

with an all temp crew.” The first part of 

the summer was spent on survey and 

construction staking, and Scott noted that 

some permanent employees “were moved 

in once construction started.” 
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For most of June “we had heavy rain...making field survey work difficult. The stream 

along the route was at flood stage. By July we had finished the final construction staking 

which included a major channel change for the stream adjacent to the road. The mosquitoes 

were so thick that we had to wear bandannas across our faces even after applying cans of 

insect repellent.” 

For that project, Scott was quartered in a motel room in Thayne, Wyoming, “where the 

office trailer was parked,” and he’d take his clothes into a Laundromat in Jackson on the 

weekends. For meals, the crew split their loyalties between the town’s two small cafés. One, 

he said, was “run by a Catholic and one by a Mormon,” and they “seemed to have a 

competition going that went beyond food...As the summer went on, both cafés kind of 

adopted us and made sure we would be taken care of when they were closed.” Occasionally, 

he said, he’d go “to the Cowboy Bar at Alpine for good dinners on Saturday night.” 

During their spare time, the crew was well occupied. Most of them “played softball 

on the Thayne team. We also helped a local dairy farmer bring in hay bales 

over several evenings.” He remembered 

that the bales were heavy, but the farmer 

was well-conditioned to deal with them. 

“The bales I could just barely buck-up off 

the ground, the farmer pulled up to stack 

with one arm and a hay hook.” That, Scott 

said, “really impressed me.” 

All in all, he reflected, “Thayne was 

very welcoming to our crew–even though 

there was some grumbling about the time it 

took for merchants to be paid through (the 

government’s) purchase order process.” 

That year, Scott’s duties revolved An incident on a 1961 project along the WayanFreedom Highway. WFLHD Archives. 

mostly around materials testing, and “we worked into the middle of November.” Then, as the 

stream flows dropped, the contractor cut back to “placing the large multi-plate culverts... 

“When snow came, I learned a lot about getting two-wheel drive pickups stuck in very 

stupid places. I was a slow learner, but the best (tire-chain) installer on the crew. Overnight 

temperatures reached -20 degrees, and the clear night skies were filled with fluffy snow 

crystals slowly drifting down. Starting the trucks in the morning became an interesting 

proposition. If one would turn over, we could use it to jump the others.” 

Keeping warm in such temperatures was not easy. Scott said he “invested in a pair of 

heavy Woolrich pants which I wore over long johns and Levis. This kept me reasonably 

warm.” But, he added, his “proudest cold weather acquisition was a pair of army-surplus 

mukluks–white canvass, mid-calf boots with a moccasin sole and felt inserts. A cord 

drawstring at the top kept the snow out. 

“I thought these were just the ticket for keeping my feet warm while I worked on notes 

in the office,” he said. “Emory, however, felt that they were totally inappropriate attire for 

working in a Government office. In the 39 years I was associated with the agency, I (was) 

chewed out by some pretty proficient linguists, but I don’t think any of them matched his 

passion! As I recall, though, that was a Saturday in which I was volunteering my time, and I 

was not about to back down....I suspect we were both a little burned-out and the battle 
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probably allowed us to vent some pent-up steam. I can’t remember what the final resolution 

was, but I did get to continue wearing those cool mukluks.” 

The project finally shut down just before Thanksgiving, which pleased the motel 

owners to no end. They “wanted to close for the winter and didn’t see my $5 a day as a big 

loss.” 

During his last summer as a temporary, June through August 1965, Scott was assigned 

to a construction project on Idaho Highway 21 from Lowman north. Jim Jensen was the 

Project Engineer, and Scott said he “definitely ran the job.” He had his own unique method of 

dealing with “equipment operators who were doing something he didn’t like: “I don’t know 

what you’re doing, but Quit!” he would tell them. 

“I remember that phone service to the office was spotty at best,” Scott said, and “that 

seemed to suit Jim just fine. He could usually get in touch with Boise if he needed something, 

but never seemed to be able to receive their calls of advice.” 

During that summer, “we had a major slide that just kept moving and closing the 

highway. We soon ran out of places to put all the extra material. My suggestion was to put a 

1⁄2 yard of it in the trunk of each tourist that complained about the delays. I figured that would 

only take a week to solve the problem. Jim was not impressed. 

“In general, the job progressed smoothly under Jim’s direction, and I learned a lot 

watching him.” Scott said that as the project engineer, Jim Jensen worked through “major 

issues with the contractor with firmness, but also a willingness to compromise to get a good 

job and stay on schedule.” 

Reflecting back on his five years as a summer temporary with the BPR, Scott reflected 

that many of the other young men he worked with came from small towns, and “times do 

change, but it was and still is a great way to make a contribution, visit some of the greatest 

places in the world, and earn a good living.” 

Scott Rustay was Chief of the Project Development Branch when he retired. More of 

Scott’s experiences with paving, safety, and materials testing will be covered in future stories 

in this series. Retirees with memories to share are welcome to submit them to Marili Reilly at

marili.reilly@dot.gov.