Incorporation Information
STATE INCORPORATION: Granted Dec. 7, 2000, under Chapter 181, as a non-profit educational corporation. Sales tax exemption also granted.
FEDERAL INCORPORATION: Granted Dec. 13, 2000, as 501(c)(3) educational charitable corporation.
Office Address:
2583 Millbrook Road
Appleton, WI 54914
Phone: (920) 427 9000
How It All Started
John Gillespie was born on a Wisconsin family farm and went to the same one-room country school attended by his father, grandfather, and oldest son. In second grade he took an interest in a third grader named Jan, and they have been married since 1957.
He founded a landscape company in his junior year of high school that is still in operation over four decades later. John got his bachelors degree in agriculture from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, specializing in Landscape Architecture. He then served in the Army as a Captain in a combat engineer battalion.
In 1965 John and Jan founded the very successful Rawhide Boys Ranch. The following year Bart and Cherry, of Green Bay Packer fame, joined them and with the Gillespies continue to volunteer their time.
The beautiful 500-acre campus of a dozen major buildings stretches for a mile along the Wolf River in Waupaca County. Rawhide, and its high school, Starr Academy, are completely debt free, and have close to an 80% success rate with young men placed by the Wisconsin Juvenile Courts.
In July 2000 John’s passion for America led him to run for the U.S. Senate. Even with close to a million votes, he didn’t win the race, but America has won. John’s message of love of country, patriotism, and faith in God – the message of our Founding Fathers – is now reaching a new generation through 1776 American Dream.
Resources
http://www.wisplitics.com/
Find all Wisconsin State Representatives and Senators, plus a variety of other State political activity.
http://www.senate.gov/
Find all the Federal U.S. House of Representatives members, plus bills being proposed, debated, and being voted on.
http://www.local.gov/
Connect with your Senators, and search for bills in progress and much more.
http://www.ushistory.org/
Learn about the Declaration of Independence, the biographies of all 56 signers, the Revolutionary War, and more about the founding of America.
http://www.rawhide.org/
Rawhide Boys Ranch was founded in 1965 by John and Jan Gillespie. A year later they invited Green Bay Packer great, Bart Starr, and his wife Cherry, to join them. Rawhide has become one of the most successful youth rehabilitation programs in the nation.