Talk about being born into the sport! Richard (Rick) Jenkins has almost forty years experience and he just turned 40 this year. A player in the 4 Corners area, Rick has been instrumental in elevating Chokecherry Canyon and the Farmington area into the iconic wheeling area it is. Stick around and learn more of his history, from being in the crib in the back of an International Scout2 to leading Jeep Jamboree in Ouray and trail leading at EJS. If it’s in the Four Corners, you’ll find Rick out taking care of business.
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Talk about being born into the sport! Richard (Rick) Jenkins has almost forty years experience and he just turned 40 this year. A player in the 4 Corners area, Rick has been instrumental in elevating Chokecherry Canyon and the Farmington area into the iconic wheeling area it is. Stick around and learn more of his history, from being in the crib in the back of an International Scout2 to leading Jeep Jamboree in Ouray and trail leading at EJS. If it’s in the Four Corners, you’ll find Rick out taking care of business.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:01:19.460] – Big Rich Klein
Alright. On today’s episode of Conversations with Big Rich, we have none other than Richard Jenkins, anybody that’s in the Four Corners area all the way. I’d say from Moab to Farmington to Las Cruces, Arizona, southwestern Colorado, you’re going to know Richard Jenkins, if you wheel. He is an integral part of the wheeling community here and has been since he was just a child. And he grew up with some of the iconic people of our history that are no longer with us. And we’re going to talk not only Richard’s history, but we’re going to talk about some of those icons that he grew up with or grew up around.
[00:02:01.000] – Big Rich Klein
So Richard, first of all, I’d like to thank you for all the hard work that you have done to get WE Rock and our rock Crawling series back into Farmington over the last few years and the friendship and the writing you have done for our magazine and all that. You’re just a stand-up guy and we really appreciate it. So thank you for coming on board.
[00:02:23.600] – Richard Jenkins
Well, it’s definitely a pleasure to be part of this. And I got to say it’s very flattering to actually be part of the podcast as well. It’s like the last piece of the WE Rock, 4Low magazine and on the podcast with you is just really flattering to be part of that.
[00:02:44.800] – Big Rich Klein
Well, thank you. So let’s get started right at the beginning. Where were you born? And where did you grow up?
[00:02:52.240] – Richard Jenkins
So I was born in Plano, Texas, at Plano General High School. Sorry. At the I was going.
[00:02:59.490] – Big Rich Klein
Wait a second.
[00:03:00.060] – Richard Jenkins
Sorry. I was born in Plano, Texas.
[00:03:04.220] – Big Rich Klein
That’s a different type of home ec class. Okay.
[00:03:07.650] – Richard Jenkins
Yeah,
[00:03:08.960] – Big Rich Klein
I digress, Let’s go. Okay.
[00:03:09.990] – Richard Jenkins
Yeah. At the Plano General Hospital in that hospital. Doesn’t exist anymore. In fact, my oldest daughter, the hospital she was born in doesn’t exist anymore. As interesting as that is. But we moved to Farmington, New Mexico, 1982, and I was pretty much just born into the back of an international Scout, 2, so to speak. I was just always running in the back of a scout. They had a crib in the back of the Scout. So when we’d be out four wheeling, I’d be trying to stop myself from falling asleep.
[00:03:45.380] – Richard Jenkins
I’d fall over and get right back up and try to see everything we were doing. But still, it’s back in the day when the seatbelt laws, there weren’t seatbelt laws and stuff like that, but it just shows how far back it goes and everything for me.
[00:04:03.380] – Big Rich Klein
Right. Let’s reference that time period, if you don’t mind, how old are you?
[00:04:08.490] – Richard Jenkins
Not at all. So I’m 40 years old.
[00:04:11.090] – Big Rich Klein
Okay. Okay. We’ll do the math. So let’s talk about more about that early time. You your parents, some of the people that they hung out with, like Harold Off and all that and the others. Let’s dive into that a little bit. And then we’ll get back into your history.
[00:04:32.900] – Richard Jenkins
Oh, sure. Yeah. When I was a kid. So it was 1982, when we moved to Farmington in 1983. We had been four wheel driving with Jim Peterson and a few other people like Leroy Riley and Bobby Harrison, Harold Fos, Don Sisson and that’s Garrett and Matt Sisson. Dad, they used to compete in UROC and Arca. They were the they were the Skyjacker competitors.
[00:05:05.730] – Big Rich Klein
Absolutely.
[00:05:06.730] – Richard Jenkins
So we used to four wheel drive with them. Harold Off came around a little bit. He was around but came around. We went with all of us a little bit later, I think. But in 1983, Jim Peterson pulled my parents into the club because dad was really good at doing all kinds of different land use stuff. In fact, it was through the 80’s and 90’s that dad was a delegate for United Four Wheel Drive Association and doing some of the lobbying and stuff in Washington, DC just to make sure that the Department of Interior still recognized and wouldn’t do anything with our ability to four wheel drive in the public lands.
[00:05:48.260] – Big Rich Klein
Right. And that was specifically in this area, or was he working nationwide, keeping trying to keep public lands.
[00:05:54.690] – Richard Jenkins
He was working nationwide early on when four wheel driving sport utility started to he wrote for them and worked with Mark Workmeister and Harold Ogden and different people like that. And so we would all end up four wheeling together. In fact, when Southwest Four Wheel Drive Association started, the first annual meeting was basically held at my parents house. Everybody registered and came in and we had a big meeting and then the rest of it was held in Choke Cherry Canyon. We were basically representing for the first time to people that we had this really great area that people had been building four wheel drive trails in the San Juan four wheelers since the late 60s.
[00:06:45.420] – Richard Jenkins
And that’s around the time late Sixties is around the time that Harold Off change the name of San Juan Auto and Truck Dismantlers to Off Again. And since 1948, Off Again. Or the Auto and Truck Dismantlers were working on Jeep vehicles and four wheel drive vehicles. But then when you were building a vehicle like that, you weren’t. You weren’t necessarily building it to drive on the trail, to go out and do what we do now for fun. You were building these rigs so that they could get to well sites.
[00:07:24.110] – Richard Jenkins
And at that time, the Basin was just kicking off to the San Juan Basin. So a lot of, like your Willys Jeeps and stuff, they would get drilling implements added to them. And, you know, different other PTO devices. And we were having to build a lot of the stuff. I should say Harold and Charlie Off, were having to build a lot of the stuff that was going on all of these four wheel drive vehicles just so that they could get to where they needed to get the pad done and put together the well site.
[00:07:59.070] – Big Rich Klein
Okay.
[00:08:00.310] – Richard Jenkins
Interesting. It was a lot different. You didn’t have these lease roads that were maintained back then, right?
[00:08:09.240] – Big Rich Klein
It was really wild catting.
[00:08:11.840] – Richard Jenkins
Yeah. It was very cross country. You had a plot and you had to figure out how to get there through a section that was considered a right of access. READ MORE
