The Ford Institute Leadership Program, a five-year series of classes offered by The Ford Family Foundation, of Roseburg, will return to Wallowa County this month. From 2005 until 2010, Ford leadership classes were held in Enterprise. This month another five-year series of classes will begin in Wallowa.

According to Mary Hawkins of Wallowa, who attended and taught Ford Leadership classes during the five-year run in Enterprise, 24 people are signed up for more than 50 hours of leadership training in Wallowa from January until early May 2014.

The basis of leadership classes offered without charge to persons living in communities of 30,000 people or less, according to the Ford Family Foundation website, is to assist vital rural communities (to) develop from a broad base of knowledgeable, skilled, and motivated leaders, a diversity of effective organizations, and productive collaboration among organizations.

Hawkins says she and Debbie King, also of Wallowa, will be facilitators for the program that will launch with a three-hour session beginning at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 22, at Wallowa City Hall. Friday (1 p.m.-6 p.m.) and Saturday (9 a.m.-4 p.m.) sessions all at Wallowa Assembly of God Church will follow Jan. 31-Feb. 1, Feb. 28-March 1, April 4-5, and May 2-3.

Having commenced the Foundation in 1957 and the Leadership Program in 2003, what has become the five-year cycle of Ford Institute Leadership Program classes includes graduated classes on leadership in years one, three and five; a class on effective organizations in year two; and a class on community collaboratives in year four.

Using binder materials, Power Point presentations, and activities as teaching aids in the classroom, Hawkins says topics to be covered will include community capacity, leadership styles, community development models, asset mapping, group development, and volunteerism.

Those who attend the Leadership Program are not tied to a five-year commitment, Hawkins says. She does say, however, that each year from 2005 to 2010 about 25 people were enrolled in each successive class.

The person most responsible for bringing The Ford Institute Leadership Program to Wallowa in 2014 is Linda Bauck, currently on an extended vacation outside the state of Oregon.