Course on mules kicks off
at Pierce College

By Dana Bartholomew, Staff Writer, Daily News of Los Angeles

WOODLAND HILLS -- "Mule professor" Steve Edwards swung his spurs over his saddle, hit the Pierce College corral and let out a piercing cowboy holler.

"Yahhh, yahhh, yahhh!"

The mule didn't flinch -- testament to the Arizona rancher's renown at handling horse-and-ass hybrids. And for mule skinners at the world's only college program for riding, training and packing mules, it was a sheer urban-agricultural joy.

"The program is great -- it brings back the Old West," said Christy Johnson, 37, of Acton, the youngest of seven women to enroll in the five-day program last week.

"How crazy is this? You can stand here in this barn and see high-rise buildings. It's wild."

The mule-training program at "Mule College U.S.A." hit a milestone last week when it moved from the "mule motel" corral into an interim home at the historic Red Barn, built when Pierce was founded a half-century ago as an agricultural school.

And as condos spring up around the verdant campus, the mule-skinning class is saddling up for a national advertising campaign, an exchange of mules and students with a Sierra pack station, and a national competition at Mule Days in Bishop.

Founded two years ago, the award-winning program has trained 110 students and certified two mule skinners for jobs that fetch more than $40 an hour at equestrian centers and on mountain pack trips.

For it's the cool mule, not the hot-blooded horse, that's become the four-legged Harley-Davidson of baby boomers, say enthusiasts and college administrators.

"This is the only college mule-training program, not only in the country, but in the world," declared Charlotte Doctor, dean of academic affairs and life sciences, with eight full courses in mule handling and health and farrier science.

And at its heart is the craggy cowboy who heads west twice a year from his Queen Valley Mule Ranch in Arizona to teach classes in the San Fernando Valley. His focus: safety, first and foremost.

"I've never seen a stubborn mule," Edwards, dressed in baggy jeans and a buttoned-up plaid shirt, told his introductory class. "I've seen mules ask questions -- but we didn't have the communication skills to answer the questions. You can bluff a horse, but not a mule.

"Mules are like women ... they want details ."

Nearby, the squabbling of finches combined with the honks of mules to compete for class attention within a barn reeking of tack and dung.

The mule, considered beneath the hoof of most horse owners, is a class act, according to owners. The sterile offspring of a horse and donkey was the choice of gentlemen and clergy of the Middle Ages.

Stronger, less excitable, and able to jump higher than a horse, mules accompanied Cortes across South America. They were the favorite of George Washington, whose gift of a jackass from Spain was the forefather of most American mules.

Mules were the diesel-like equine of the Civil War and Gold Rush, and of farms and deserts across America. The Los Angeles Aqueduct was built on the backs of thousands of mules.

"Mules are torque, an engine that can go straight uphill," said Mark Drummond, chancellor of California's community colleges, who helped found the Pierce mule program as former head of the Los Angeles Community College District. "I think mules are classy animals."

It was Drummond who paraded through Mule Days last spring -- in a tux.

For students in love with the animals' deliberate nature, the Pierce program promises the best a mule has to offer.

"I want to be a mule skinner, probably because I'm very foolish," joked Kay Elder, 67, of Canoga Park. "I love mules."

Susan Soderburgh, a former Bullocks store manager, is now a certified mule skinner, or muleteer.

"Once you get into mules, you're hooked," said Soderburgh of Woodland Hills. "(Nearly) three years ago, when I started this program, I had never touched a mule. I was afraid of mules. I'd never seen one.

"But when I got done with the program, I started my own business, Blazing Arrow -- mule-donkey training."

"I want to be a packer," said Johnson, a mother of two who is five months pregnant. "I'll probably give birth at Mule Days."

Dana Bartholomew, (818) 713-3730 dana.bartholomew@dailynews.com