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Dear Alums |
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B.A., Sociology, ’65 Wayne Wooden has always been interested in why people do what they do. This curiosity led him from Chico State to the Peace Corps to a doctoral program in sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. His books range from Return to Paradise, about tourism in Hawaii, to Renegade Kids, Suburban Outlaws, about youth culture and juvenile delinquency. A professor of sociology and the coordinator of the Criminal Justice and Corrections Program at California Polytechnic State University, Pomona, Wooden has also published Children and Arson, a study of juvenile fire setters; Men Behind Bars, a study of a men’s medium-security prison; and Rodeo in America: Wranglers, Roughstock, and Paydirt, which was nominated for the Western Writers of America Spur and the National Cowboy Hall of Fame Western Heritage Awards.
Rodeo in America, co-authored with sports writer Gavin Ehringer, examines modern rodeo and its struggle to become a big-time sport without losing its cowboy roots. For three summers in the early ’90s, Wooden traveled the professional rodeo circuit, observing the rigors and professionalism of the modern rodeo cowboy. “As a trained sociologist, I was interested in how the sport had changed in recent decades, who was attracted to the competition, and how rodeo had evolved into a big business,” he says. Wooden, who was selected as Cal Poly Pomona’s 1995–96 Professor of the Year, has had an interest in sociology since his days at Chico State. He was lured to Chico by a couple of older Davis High School buddies who were attending Chico State in the early ’60s. Wooden fell in love with the campus and found the community welcoming. While at Chico State, he served as freshman class vice president, head yell leader, and rally commissioner. He lettered on the track team and was an active member of the Delta Sigma Phi social fraternity. Wooden has fond memories of several Chico State faculty: Professor Needham in English, Professor Franklin in political science, Professor Hutchinson (“Old Hutch”) in history, and especially Professor Rankin in sociology. One of Rankin’s field trips to a local prison left a lasting impression—and in a small way inspired the work that led to his study of men’s prisons. Wooden remembers 1960s Chico: “It was a place where people knew each other, a place where kids had fun.” He also remembers the day in late November 1963 when he came back to the fraternity house after preparing for a football rally. Wooden walked into the kitchen just as the house cook collapsed on the floor. “I thought she’d had a heart attack,” recalls Wooden. But she’d just heard the radio announce President Kennedy’s assassination and had fainted. “Talk about a loss of innocence,” says Wooden. “That was it for me. Football rallies just didn’t seem as important as they had only a few hours earlier.” Like many of his classmates at that time, Wooden went straight into the Peace Corps after graduation. After two years in Valencia, Venezuela, from 1965–1967, he returned to Chico to complete work for a teaching credential and was stunned at how much youth culture had changed in the two years he’d been out of the country. “Travel really helped alter my perspective,” he notes. He also noticed that many students were altering their consciousness: “When I left, kids were drinking beer at parties. When I got back, they were smoking dope.” He was fascinated by the changes and curious about social movements and youth culture. “The ’60s was a time when so much was changing, and sociology gave me a way of understanding those changes,” he says. Wooden is still pursuing a greater understanding of social changes. Last summer he traveled to Cuba with students from Cal Poly Pomona on a two-week exchange to study Cuban perceptions of American youth culture. A second edition of Wooden’s Renegade Kids, Suburban Outlaws: From Youth Culture to Delinquency, with new co-author Randy Blazak (professor of sociology, Portland State University), will be released this fall. With three new chapters and an additional focus on gangs, the book reflects Wooden’s continued interest in youth culture.
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