Introducing Our TRIO Partners

Jami Bayles is a Blanding native and community innovator who deeply understands the “cultural canyon” rural students face. As a sculptor and the TRIO Educational Talent Search Director and Grants Supervisor at USU Blanding, she combines creative passion with administrative expertise to advocate for underserved scholars.

Campaign Launch: These pilot objectives directly support the formal launch of the FCCV funding campaign in October, providing a demonstrated track record of student impact and operational success.

An Accelerated Launch Plan

In a significant shift for the integration timeline, Jami’s program will lead a pilot of an inaugural FCCV journey to San Francisco this July. This surprise trial run, funded by a surplus in the current TRIO grant cycle, offers an immediate opportunity to test the program’s travel-immersion philosophy months ahead of the formal launch.

The journey will include 4-5 hand-selected participants from high schools representing the Four Corners region. These candidates will be selected for their curiosity, sense of adventure, pioneering spirit, and specific interest in the visual arts.

Program Itinerary Taking Shape

Jami will be joined by Anthony Lott, whose capable leadership has sustained the USU Blanding art program originally begun by Ruthellen in the mid-nineties. This trial run will be highly experiential, featuring visits to galleries, museum exhibits, including the de Young Museum, and various area art shows.

Jami and Anthony will facilitate participant engagement with local artists, curators, and members of the Bay Area arts community, introducing scholars to a wide pageantry of creative mediums and expressions. This immersion fosters an intercultural sharing of the students’ own unique artistic heritage and traditions within a national creative epicenter.

Pilot Objectives and Current Funding Cycle

Strategic Grant Integration: Jami’s current five-year grant ends on August 31st. Because the federal Request for Proposal (RFP) has been pushed back, she now has a window to write the Four Corners Creative Vision (FCCV) into her new grant application as a “permissible service” for career and college exposure.

Long-term Sustainability: By successfully writing the Ruthellen legacy program into the TRIO grant, the committee can use federal funds to cover portions of transportation and student supervision. This partnership preserves Aggie Funded and endowment dollars for the full implementation of FccV operations and scheduling into 2027.

Success Factors

Ultimately, this pilot serves as a critical example to showcase the potential for funding a permanent FCCV presence that bridges the cultural canyon between rural landscapes and national creative epicenters. By facilitating an experiential awakening through immersive travel, the program proves that the deep artistic traditions and local heritage of Four Corners scholars are vital threads in a global creative lineage.

These journeys provide the broadened view necessary for students to recognize their own roots as a unique vantage point, transforming the “flyover country” narrative into a catalyst for national creative leadership and ensuring rural scholars can truly realize their own potential as artists and creators in a future of their own shaping.

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