Nika-----It's all here somewhere but for a quick and brief answer to Q.#1, you can quickly find that info with a Google search of The First W@y Corps (pictures and all.) As to Q.#2, I'm not sure I would really call it a corps per se. It was really a couple or few people who made a pilgramage of sorts to HQ and somewhat declared themselves to be disciples. It was seat of the pants and any semblance of a "program" was impromptu. There is also more info. on this somewhere here at GS. I'm not so sure I would say they were "disbanded" but rather "reinvented" and replaced with the new and improved model.
The only bright spot about twi in Alaska was meeting and getting to know the S****s...who were both 0 and 1st corps...if I recall correctly...or he was both and she was 1st or something. Of all the people I ever knew in twi, this family was the family who lived what they believed. Very loving, giving, nurturing people. TWI was sucking them dry. Go figure.
1969: Wierwille comes up with "Way Corps" idea. For some reason it didn't work out. The only thing that I remember seeing about it was Wierwille saying that he "gave them the privelege to leave" and that they couildn't get it together among themselves. This may be from The Way: Living in Love.
1970: Wierwille brings in another group (don't know if there was any overlap with the 1969 group), pictured above. At some point this group is called "The First Corps". The 1969 group is largely ignored, but is informally referred to as "The Zero Corps".
By the early 90's, no member of "The First Corps" (and for that matter, only Martindale from "The Second Corps") still stood with TWI. Martindale declared that some of the "pilars of the church" were to be honored by calling them "The First Corps".
That is a nice picture dmiller. :) It amazes me how young Nancy looks in the picture. Was anyone ever that young? Guess so. :)
notinkansasanymore, I have some Way Mags from the late 60's - one includes a short write up the Way did about that "First Corps", and their graduation, etc. If I can find it later this week I'll post what it said about them. It was nothing like the hoo hah that was to come, course not much was then.
It seems like there were 4, maybe 5 of them, including a married couple. I can picture meeting the couple, so that would have made it 1969 I'm guessing. It's pretty fuzzy, we went back to the Way Nash 2-3 times in '69/70. Summer school, then a Youth Advance in the winter, that hosted the first "Rock of Ages", a concert basically and than again for summer school the next year.
They were later scrubbed, for want of a better word, from the chronology of the Way Corps and the term "0" corps was more of a term I remember everyone else used more than anything, a way to refer to that group of people at the time. After enough time passed, nobody even knew they'd existed. From what I remember their "program" wasn't anything like the live-in 2 year program that people signed up for to go into the First corps, etc.
If I find that mag I'll see what it says. (I do know there was no overlap, so that might help clarify - the corps pictured above were all new members of what is usually called the First Corps. By everybody except Craig I guess).
Speaking of reinventions, Johnny T was later included in the First Corps, since he was around the whole time. Sort of an honorary designation.
Of that picture I have to reminisce for a mo', if allowed. Of them all, Gary, Mike, Randy, Naomi and Nancy all stick out in my mind. But they were all unique and wonderful in their own ways, at various times then.
Humility, meekness - those are qualities that come to mind when I think of those 5 people. Not so much a meekness to "the Word" or the Way's plans, VP, or any of that. Rather a state of mind that was enthusiastic, interested, attentive, aware. Not entirely involved in themselves but looking to engage with other people and willing to allow others to be elevated by their efforts.
That doesn't sound all that wild and crazy now, but when I think of the many people I've met over the years, none have been more interested and engaged with others as they were, then.
Far from the "walking in power with 9 all the time" mentality that permeated the Way later they were in the process of becoming aware of themselves, they were very young remember, as everyone was for the most part. They were kind, involved, interested people.
In this graceless world that unfolds in front of me day after day, those qualities seem more and more needed everyday.
1969: Wierwille comes up with "Way Corps" idea. For some reason it didn't work out. The only thing that I remember seeing about it was Wierwille saying that he "gave them the privelege to leave" and that they couildn't get it together among themselves. This may be from The Way: Living in Love.
1970: Wierwille brings in another group (don't know if there was any overlap with the 1969 group), pictured above. At some point this group is called "The First Corps". The 1969 group is largely ignored, but is informally referred to as "The Zero Corps".
By the early 90's, no member of "The First Corps" (and for that matter, only Martindale from "The Second Corps") still stood with TWI. Martindale declared that some of the "pilars of the church" were to be honored by calling them "The First Corps".
Page-235, TWLiL:
""We started the first Way Corps then, the fall of 1969,
especially for that purpose, to prepare leaders. There were
nine of them-some married, some single, younger and older.
They stayed until the spring, and then
I gave them the privilege of leaving.
You see, they never got it together among themselves. They
on a more serious note, howard's signature looks like it was written by a 13-year old girl. I guess he must've had someone do his writing for him, since he couldn't get away with his usual "X" on official correspondence.
It was nothing like the hoo hah that was to come, course not much was then.
Wierwille and later Martindale, was always good at projecting what was now back into the past. Looking at what Whiteside wrote in TW: LIL about the 1st & 2nd Way Corps who were "in-residence" while she was writing, the whole program seemed somewhat self-directed (Del Duncan, who was in the program, seems to be running it as well) and frankly pretty disorganized.
Same with the ROA. I remember doing a presentation in our twig on the history of the ROA and dug out some old Way mags. The first one seemed to be nothing more than a good-bye concert for the summer school students in 1971, if I remember correctly the name was longer, maybe "The Return of the Rock of Ages" or something like that.
When I was in-residence with the 13th Corps, I remember John Lynn telling us that Pat Lynn had been a member of the "Zero Corps." She smiled and agreed.
The first "Rock of Ages" was actually a Sat. night dance at the 70-71 New Year's Advance. If I remember correctly, M. Smith coined the term for the dance. Anybody remember where it was? I think it was in Celina. We had some wayfer music and some secular as well.
I too remember the S----s, They were indeed the epitome of everything that Christ would expect from his disciples. Even at the worst of the Alaska TWI years they were unfailingly kind, gracious and loving toward me no matter what "leadership" etal had to say about me. I think of them often, their kindness a blazing spot of warming light, in those bleak years. TO THEM, if you are reading this, or if someone is in contact with them --please tell them that Mo Dilley sends, her love, her thanks and her respect, and wishes them God speed and joy at this Christmas Season and through the years to come.
Thanks for that scanned photo of the letter from Howard Allen to Bo. If that was any indication of how Wierwille taught his best friend, then the reality does exist that "Zero" Corps may have been a group of people who foresaw the crap coming down and would not put up with it.
Hurray for Zero Corps!
Then there is the very real possibility that Zero Corps did not expect half of what was thrown at them. That is a breakdown in communication from the top to those in that Corps and knowing Management the way I do, Management is usually to blame. Had they known what was going to happen, they would have prepared and stayed the course. Besides, in those years Wierwille was changing doctrine a lot, which may have bothered some of the first in the Corps program.
I think Donnie Fugit was in the zero corps. Can't remember where I heard it. I know he ended up in the 5th corps. As of a few years ago Ian Murphy is still in TWI. Wasn't he 2nd corps?
I don't think so, he was in the "pilot" WOW program, which was a small group (less than a dozen) who were sent out one summer (1969 or 1970) to "move the Word". Their experiences became the basis for the WOW program which "officially" began in October 1970 after Wierwille made a call for volunteers during a teaching at the Rock of Ages '70.
A word of caution regarding using Wikipedia as a definitive source: anyone can contribute material. Anonymous stuff, or wild allegations that are not sourced tend to get deleted, but only if someone is paying attention.
agreed. someone I know who I will never name has submitted articles over the years solely for the purpose of backing up a theory s/he wants to influence someone with. it's pretty darned funny. some of them are still in there.
Good point about Wikipedia, modishwasher. Gotta be careful what ya read.
Donnie was never in the 0 or 1st corps, he went in later, forget which. The people in the corps that were referred to earliest as "Zero" corps weren't names most would recognize. I'm still looking for that box, I think the names are in that Way Mag. Wordwolf's quote is about that gang The official/now-we-got-a-corps First Corps, the gang pictured in dmiller's photo, were (apparently) erased from the roster by dear Craig and "zeroed' out, so reported here. Figures, though and doesn't surprise me at all.
I know a man who is one of the people who "started" with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, when they were working out of a garage and making and delivering their own boards-in-a-box, "PC's". He sold them electronic parts and was involved different ways. He's one of a hand full of people that were there when they started. Then he left, kept at what he was doing and did quite well. But he doesn't say, nor is he referred to as a founding member of Microsoft or Apple as he decided to not keep at it with them, for his own reasons. But he and his wife "were there" and getting it off the ground at the start.
I met another guy who "invented" the USB port, did the initial work that Intel introduced. He now makes custom guitars, very nice ones too. Joe Dragony doesn't own the USB port technology though, as he did it while employed at Intel, from what he told me. His name probably isn't known outside of a small group of people that were there with him.
I mention those examples only to point out something we all know I'm sure, that the roots and beginnings of so many things can often be attributed to many different people sometimes, that aren't in the official bio's.
Like Johnny T, Donnie, and others. When VP finally got PFAL in a decent film format, there were many people around in those first few years who formed the "corps" of people that worked with him and the Way. Some of the ideas that got off the ground came from those people. Later when the programs and format got solidified some of them got "ex-officio" statuses, which is kind of funny in way.
Like Donnie and his personal "witnessing program". Donnie took PFAL and started teaching it himself in Wichita, and only later found out he couldn't do that. :) I'm sure Evan remembers that era. Donnie was just a guy - "although just" doesn't serve his memory as well as it deserves - who loved to witness to people and tell them about Jesus Christ and the bible. That's pretty much all he did for most of his life.
His lifestyle was really the foundation of the "WOW" program, and if the program had kept to that it would have been nice in it's day and likely gone through much more natural change over time.
I think this kind of "early" involvment accounts for why people of that era didn't idolize VPW, or give the Way undue credit, in some cases anyway. Really, it could apply to people at any time - where you are doing what you're doing and you own it, live it, do it. Nobody's telling you what to do or how to do it, you're just living your life.
"Getting in the Way" or "The Word", is a continuation of that, but it doesn't "own you", you "own" it. :) If you're a Christian, and called by God, that calling is from Him. You really only answer to one voice, regardless of what you do or where you do it. If that calling is clear it's not hard, difficult to navigate life at times, but not hard to remember the sound of the One who "called" you.
Recommended Posts
waysider
Nika-----It's all here somewhere but for a quick and brief answer to Q.#1, you can quickly find that info with a Google search of The First W@y Corps (pictures and all.) As to Q.#2, I'm not sure I would really call it a corps per se. It was really a couple or few people who made a pilgramage of sorts to HQ and somewhat declared themselves to be disciples. It was seat of the pants and any semblance of a "program" was impromptu. There is also more info. on this somewhere here at GS. I'm not so sure I would say they were "disbanded" but rather "reinvented" and replaced with the new and improved model.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
CoolWaters
The only bright spot about twi in Alaska was meeting and getting to know the S****s...who were both 0 and 1st corps...if I recall correctly...or he was both and she was 1st or something. Of all the people I ever knew in twi, this family was the family who lived what they believed. Very loving, giving, nurturing people. TWI was sucking them dry. Go figure.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
dmiller
Back Row: Gary Curtis, Mike Smith, Bo Reahard, Del Duncan, Randy Anderson
Front Row: Glenda Sue Maxwell, Naomi Townsend, Nancy Duncan, Nancy Burton
Link to comment
Share on other sites
waysider
Thanks, Mr. Miller.
Geeze! They sure were young. Sigh.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
dmiller
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Kit Sober
Thanks dmiller. Nice to see.
A lot of true love in that picture.
(and kindness of your heart to keep it safe.)
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Oakspear
1969: Wierwille comes up with "Way Corps" idea. For some reason it didn't work out. The only thing that I remember seeing about it was Wierwille saying that he "gave them the privelege to leave" and that they couildn't get it together among themselves. This may be from The Way: Living in Love.
1970: Wierwille brings in another group (don't know if there was any overlap with the 1969 group), pictured above. At some point this group is called "The First Corps". The 1969 group is largely ignored, but is informally referred to as "The Zero Corps".
By the early 90's, no member of "The First Corps" (and for that matter, only Martindale from "The Second Corps") still stood with TWI. Martindale declared that some of the "pilars of the church" were to be honored by calling them "The First Corps".
Link to comment
Share on other sites
socks
That is a nice picture dmiller. :) It amazes me how young Nancy looks in the picture. Was anyone ever that young? Guess so. :)
notinkansasanymore, I have some Way Mags from the late 60's - one includes a short write up the Way did about that "First Corps", and their graduation, etc. If I can find it later this week I'll post what it said about them. It was nothing like the hoo hah that was to come, course not much was then.
It seems like there were 4, maybe 5 of them, including a married couple. I can picture meeting the couple, so that would have made it 1969 I'm guessing. It's pretty fuzzy, we went back to the Way Nash 2-3 times in '69/70. Summer school, then a Youth Advance in the winter, that hosted the first "Rock of Ages", a concert basically and than again for summer school the next year.
They were later scrubbed, for want of a better word, from the chronology of the Way Corps and the term "0" corps was more of a term I remember everyone else used more than anything, a way to refer to that group of people at the time. After enough time passed, nobody even knew they'd existed. From what I remember their "program" wasn't anything like the live-in 2 year program that people signed up for to go into the First corps, etc.
If I find that mag I'll see what it says. (I do know there was no overlap, so that might help clarify - the corps pictured above were all new members of what is usually called the First Corps. By everybody except Craig I guess).
Edited by socksLink to comment
Share on other sites
dmiller
I found that picture by following Waysider's advice, to Google *First Way Corps*. ;)
Edited by dmillerLink to comment
Share on other sites
socks
Speaking of reinventions, Johnny T was later included in the First Corps, since he was around the whole time. Sort of an honorary designation.
Of that picture I have to reminisce for a mo', if allowed. Of them all, Gary, Mike, Randy, Naomi and Nancy all stick out in my mind. But they were all unique and wonderful in their own ways, at various times then.
Humility, meekness - those are qualities that come to mind when I think of those 5 people. Not so much a meekness to "the Word" or the Way's plans, VP, or any of that. Rather a state of mind that was enthusiastic, interested, attentive, aware. Not entirely involved in themselves but looking to engage with other people and willing to allow others to be elevated by their efforts.
That doesn't sound all that wild and crazy now, but when I think of the many people I've met over the years, none have been more interested and engaged with others as they were, then.
Far from the "walking in power with 9 all the time" mentality that permeated the Way later they were in the process of becoming aware of themselves, they were very young remember, as everyone was for the most part. They were kind, involved, interested people.
In this graceless world that unfolds in front of me day after day, those qualities seem more and more needed everyday.
Edited by socksLink to comment
Share on other sites
WordWolf
Page-235, TWLiL:
""We started the first Way Corps then, the fall of 1969,
especially for that purpose, to prepare leaders. There were
nine of them-some married, some single, younger and older.
They stayed until the spring, and then
I gave them the privilege of leaving.
You see, they never got it together among themselves. They
didn't have that commitment, that discipline."
Link to comment
Share on other sites
GrouchoMarxJr
Well...I guess that the ENTIRE Second corps is now gone...
Link to comment
Share on other sites
sprawled out
on a more serious note, howard's signature looks like it was written by a 13-year old girl. I guess he must've had someone do his writing for him, since he couldn't get away with his usual "X" on official correspondence.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Oakspear
Same with the ROA. I remember doing a presentation in our twig on the history of the ROA and dug out some old Way mags. The first one seemed to be nothing more than a good-bye concert for the summer school students in 1971, if I remember correctly the name was longer, maybe "The Return of the Rock of Ages" or something like that.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
DogLover
When I was in-residence with the 13th Corps, I remember John Lynn telling us that Pat Lynn had been a member of the "Zero Corps." She smiled and agreed.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
TheEvan
Looks like Howard's sig. to me...
The first "Rock of Ages" was actually a Sat. night dance at the 70-71 New Year's Advance. If I remember correctly, M. Smith coined the term for the dance. Anybody remember where it was? I think it was in Celina. We had some wayfer music and some secular as well.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
templelady
I too remember the S----s, They were indeed the epitome of everything that Christ would expect from his disciples. Even at the worst of the Alaska TWI years they were unfailingly kind, gracious and loving toward me no matter what "leadership" etal had to say about me. I think of them often, their kindness a blazing spot of warming light, in those bleak years. TO THEM, if you are reading this, or if someone is in contact with them --please tell them that Mo Dilley sends, her love, her thanks and her respect, and wishes them God speed and joy at this Christmas Season and through the years to come.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Eagle
Thanks for that scanned photo of the letter from Howard Allen to Bo. If that was any indication of how Wierwille taught his best friend, then the reality does exist that "Zero" Corps may have been a group of people who foresaw the crap coming down and would not put up with it.
Hurray for Zero Corps!
Then there is the very real possibility that Zero Corps did not expect half of what was thrown at them. That is a breakdown in communication from the top to those in that Corps and knowing Management the way I do, Management is usually to blame. Had they known what was going to happen, they would have prepared and stayed the course. Besides, in those years Wierwille was changing doctrine a lot, which may have bothered some of the first in the Corps program.
Just thoughts.
Eagle
Link to comment
Share on other sites
johniam
I think Donnie Fugit was in the zero corps. Can't remember where I heard it. I know he ended up in the 5th corps. As of a few years ago Ian Murphy is still in TWI. Wasn't he 2nd corps?
Edited by johniamLink to comment
Share on other sites
dmiller
DONNIE FUGIT'S INFLUENCE ON LCM.
Too bad LCM didn't have *ears to hear*. Donnie was one of the good guys.
Edited by dmillerLink to comment
Share on other sites
Oakspear
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mod Kirk
A word of caution regarding using Wikipedia as a definitive source: anyone can contribute material. Anonymous stuff, or wild allegations that are not sourced tend to get deleted, but only if someone is paying attention.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
potato
agreed. someone I know who I will never name has submitted articles over the years solely for the purpose of backing up a theory s/he wants to influence someone with. it's pretty darned funny. some of them are still in there.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
socks
Good point about Wikipedia, modishwasher. Gotta be careful what ya read.
Donnie was never in the 0 or 1st corps, he went in later, forget which. The people in the corps that were referred to earliest as "Zero" corps weren't names most would recognize. I'm still looking for that box, I think the names are in that Way Mag. Wordwolf's quote is about that gang The official/now-we-got-a-corps First Corps, the gang pictured in dmiller's photo, were (apparently) erased from the roster by dear Craig and "zeroed' out, so reported here. Figures, though and doesn't surprise me at all.
I know a man who is one of the people who "started" with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, when they were working out of a garage and making and delivering their own boards-in-a-box, "PC's". He sold them electronic parts and was involved different ways. He's one of a hand full of people that were there when they started. Then he left, kept at what he was doing and did quite well. But he doesn't say, nor is he referred to as a founding member of Microsoft or Apple as he decided to not keep at it with them, for his own reasons. But he and his wife "were there" and getting it off the ground at the start.
I met another guy who "invented" the USB port, did the initial work that Intel introduced. He now makes custom guitars, very nice ones too. Joe Dragony doesn't own the USB port technology though, as he did it while employed at Intel, from what he told me. His name probably isn't known outside of a small group of people that were there with him.
I mention those examples only to point out something we all know I'm sure, that the roots and beginnings of so many things can often be attributed to many different people sometimes, that aren't in the official bio's.
Like Johnny T, Donnie, and others. When VP finally got PFAL in a decent film format, there were many people around in those first few years who formed the "corps" of people that worked with him and the Way. Some of the ideas that got off the ground came from those people. Later when the programs and format got solidified some of them got "ex-officio" statuses, which is kind of funny in way.
Like Donnie and his personal "witnessing program". Donnie took PFAL and started teaching it himself in Wichita, and only later found out he couldn't do that. :) I'm sure Evan remembers that era. Donnie was just a guy - "although just" doesn't serve his memory as well as it deserves - who loved to witness to people and tell them about Jesus Christ and the bible. That's pretty much all he did for most of his life.
His lifestyle was really the foundation of the "WOW" program, and if the program had kept to that it would have been nice in it's day and likely gone through much more natural change over time.
I think this kind of "early" involvment accounts for why people of that era didn't idolize VPW, or give the Way undue credit, in some cases anyway. Really, it could apply to people at any time - where you are doing what you're doing and you own it, live it, do it. Nobody's telling you what to do or how to do it, you're just living your life.
"Getting in the Way" or "The Word", is a continuation of that, but it doesn't "own you", you "own" it. :) If you're a Christian, and called by God, that calling is from Him. You really only answer to one voice, regardless of what you do or where you do it. If that calling is clear it's not hard, difficult to navigate life at times, but not hard to remember the sound of the One who "called" you.
Edited by socksLink to comment
Share on other sites
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.