HETTINGER - Hundreds of ewes near Hettinger had an interesting "hair" week.

They were like practice hairstyling school customers at the NDSUExtension Service's first-ever sheep-shearing school.

They suffered a few clipper nicks while their creamy white locks were sheared down to the nub, but the girls were good sports and didn't bleat too much about it.

After all, a sheep shearer's got to learn how sometime, just like a hairdresser needs the real thing to get good at it.

Sheep shearers are - like dairymen or field hands - hard to find, in big demand and worth a fair amount of money.

The three-day school drew 10 students from three states, eager to learn from master shearer Curt Olson of Broadus, Mont., who set up his shearing trailer at the extension service's facility at Hettinger.

The extension used its own sheep for practice, since its 600 ewes are near lambing and should be sheared before then anyway, said extension service manager Chris Schauer.

Olson is a big Norwegian with a big voice. He's got artificial hips and a fused spine from a bad horse wreck years ago.

In his day, he could shear a sheep in 45 seconds flat, and has the plaque to prove it. He can still do it with a blindfold - covering his eyes, not the sheep's.

He sounds and looks like a Zen wrestling coach.

He shows a shearer how to use his hands on the wool and clippers, and his legs and feet to position the sheep, which are surprisingly docile as they get twisted and pinned between a pair of human legs.

The most important human body part is upstairs, Olson said.

"You shear with your mind," he said.

It takes a while to get good at a professional shearing pattern that begins and ends at the same place on every animal. Olson said a shearer should be able to zip through a sheep in about two minutes and handle at least 150 a day.

Speed matters. Shearers get paid by the animal, in the range of $2 to $3 each - more if wool prices are trending upward, which they are now.

It's hard to get a shearing crew, and those in the business can earn $20,000 a year working evenings and weekends. Sheep producers bring in Peruvians at shearing time because they can't find local help, Olson said.

Evan Tauck, 25, of Hammond, Mont., had sweat running off the end of his nose while he put his whole body into the effort of positioning and shearing a sheep under Olson's instruction. The trailer was warm from the blast of a propane heater.

"I want to get on a crew," Tauck said on his break. "It's hard work, good work and you don't feel lazy doing it. It's a lot harder than it looks."

He said he can use the extra earnings to get more financially secure on his family's operation, and there are plenty of sheep ranchers around where he lives.

Olson said shearers can find work in their eastern Montana and southwestern North Dakota neighborhood, and around the world in places like Australia and New Zealand, where the industry is huge.

Adams County alone has about 13,000 sheep, Schauer said, and producers are hard-pressed for workers at shearing time.

"That's one reason for doing the school," he said. "This is something that's missing and needed in agriculture."

Richard Jambor planned to take what he learned back to school.

He's the vocational agriculture instructor at Dickinson High School, and took his own personal days and paid the $125 fee to learn how. He said what he learned from Olson he can teach his students, who could, like Olson's assistant, shear their way through college.

"I've always admired guys who do this kind of work," Jambor said.

It isn't just for guys, either.

Women make good students because they listen to detail better than men and have delicate wrists for maneuvering the clippers, Olson said.

Brenda and Tim Szymanski of northern Minnesota have a small grass-fed cow and sheep operation, and came to the school because they were frustrated with the money they paid to a shearer for poor quality work that injured some of the ewes.

Shelly Hahn, also of Hammond, brought her 16-year-old son Clint to the shearing school.

"Where we live, this is one thing he can do without traveling to town to get a town job," she said.

Olson said he's taught his technique to hundreds of people over the years. He said he used to think he could tell right away if someone "had it," or didn't.

He's been surprised so often that he said he knows better now.

"The most important thing is having the right mind, the right attitude," he said.

Same for the ewes.

As any girl who's had an uneven or choppy haircut knows, it'll grow back … eventually.

(Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 888-303-5511 or lauren@;westriv.com.)