Cheyenne resident chosen for Mike Rowe work ethic scholarships

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — The work ethic of a Cheyenne resident is paying off after he was named among the 124 recipients of the mikeroweWORKS scholarships in 2023.

That scholarship recipient is Dalton Bullinger. He is among 13 scholarship recipients from Wyoming. The total of the 124 scholarships is $675,000, Mike Rowe said in a social media post.

Mike Rowe is best known as the creator and host of Discovery Channel’s “Dirty Jobs.” After many years as host of “Dirty Jobs,” which took him to every state in the nation, Rowe discovered that there was a disconnect in the country with the concept of “blue-collar workers.” Rowe found that blue-collar workers “didn’t resemble the unflattering, blue-collar workers often portrayed in the media. … Our society didn’t, and still doesn’t, have a trained workforce standing by or willing to fill the positions that actually exist.”

In 2008, Rowe created the Mike Rowe Works Foundation to launch a national PR campaign for skilled labor. The foundation’s website is available here.

According to the Mike Rowe Works Foundation website, the foundation has “granted or helped facilitate the granting of more than $5 million in Work Ethic scholarships and other like-minded programs or initiatives that also work to close the skills gap.”

Bullinger was selected during the second round of scholarships, Rowe said.

The total of the 124 scholarships is $675,000, Mike Rowe said in a social media post. Those from Wyoming named to receive a scholarship include:

• Blake Buatte, Laramie
• Cuauhtemoc Montoya, Gillette
• Preston Green, Gillette
• Ethan Copenhaver, Laramie
• Ian Dalton, Laramie
• Jeremiah Duran, Laramie
• Gavin Guthrie, Laramie
• Julieanne Newman, Laramie
• Leah Perry, Laramie
• Gabriel Suarez, Laramie
• Emily Suddarth, Laramie
• Hunter Taylor, Laramie
• Dalton Bullinger, Cheyenne

For 2023, there were 324 recipients garnering more than $1.67 million in scholarships, something Rowe said is “our best year since we began, way back on Labor Day of 2008.”

“I have nothing against four-year schools, but from what I can tell, our country is not suffering today from a dearth of four-year degrees — we’re suffering from the growing scarcity of skilled tradespeople,” Rowe wrote in his post. “Last I checked, the number of skilled workers leaving the workforce was nearly three times the number who enter. That math is very bad news for all of us, and this program is designed to train those individuals who want to join the next generation of skilled workers.”

Rowe added that in 15 years, the foundation has assisted nearly 2,000 people with $8 million in work ethic scholarships. There’s no endowment aiding in that funding, he said.

For anyone who applied for a scholarship in 2023 but didn’t receive one, Rowe says: “Don’t be discouraged. You were not ‘weighed, measured, and found wanting.’ You were just in really good company. Every year, more and more people apply for these work ethic scholarships, and every year, I wish we could assist more people who want to learn a useful skill. Please apply again in 2024.”