MEDINA (AP) - Seventy-five years ago, on April 7, 1933, the first enrollees were inducted into President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps.

The following year, 18-year-old Alvin Graf of Medina joined the ranks of what would eventually include 3.5 million young men, ages 18 to 25, who were happy to find work during the Great Depression.

"There was no jobs and there was 13 kids in our family," Graf said. "We got $30 a month and $25 went home to the folks."

Donna Broome, archivist and journal editor of the Civilian Conservation Corps Legacy in St. Louis, Mo., said more than 31,700 enrollees in the CCC were North Dakota natives. For their $30 a month, they developed recreational parks, built dams, erected fire towers and fire roads and planted more than three billion trees.

"An average of eight camps a year were operated with a total financial obligation within the state of more than $16 million," she said.

Graf was in the CCC until the spring of 1936, when he returned to Medina to help his father farm. But between the drought and the Depression, farming was a losing battle.

"We had two years of almost starving then, so I went back in," Graf said. He stayed in the CCC through 1938.

During his two tours of duty, Graf worked with Company 796 in Pierre, S.D., Hayes Center, Neb., and Foxholm, N.D., and with Company 710 in Middle River, Minn.

"In Pierre, we built a dam across the Missouri River. There was an island and we made a beautiful park out of it," he said.

In Foxholm, his company cut down trees and built islands in the river before the dam was constructed so ducklings could hatch out and be safe from predators.

The Army managed the work camps, and life was regimented.

"We had to get up at Reveille and had taps and all that, just like a regular Army camp," Graf said.

Some complained about the food, but he thought it was very good. He gained weight while he was there, he said.

Every weekend, the men could ride to town in the back of an old Army truck. Some spent their $5 a month, but Graf was frugal. He enjoyed a movie once a month for 25 cents and a daily treat of a 5-cent Mr. Goodbar and a 5-cent Orange Crush. Laundry cost another 25 cents each month.

"When I went home, I had $20 in my pocket," he said.

All the work the men in Graf's companies did was physical labor with a shovel and a wheelbarrow. Some couldn't handle the work and dropped out, but Graf didn't think he had to work hard.

"Not compared to farm work," he said. "Farm work - that was harder."

But life in the CCC had days that were tough even for a North Dakota farm boy.

"In the winter of 1935-36, it got 57 below," Graf recalled. "We had coal, but that was going fast. We didn't work for a month. We went out every day for two hours to cut wood to keep from freezing."

In Middle River, a mumps outbreak quarantined the entire camp for a month. Graf said the men got in the old truck once and snuck out, but the camp doctor caught them.

The CCC died from lack of congressional funding in June 1942. By then, the United States had entered World War II and the Great Depression was over. But while it existed, Graf feels the program was absolutely vital.

"They call Democrats liberals because President Roosevelt had all these handouts for people who needed help," he said. "They had to have help. There was just no way out."

In past years, Graf visited all the projects he helped build, but he doesn't drive that far any more. He is especially proud of the bronze statue of a CCC worker outside the museum - a CCC project - at Fort Abraham Lincoln in Mandan. The Jamestown chapter of CCC veterans raised $50,000 to have the statue built. He donated most of his CCC memorabilia to the museum.

The Jamestown CCC chapter no longer meets. Graf doesn't think there are even a dozen members living.

"You see, I'm almost 93, and I was 18 when I went in, so it was a long time ago," he said.

But his vivid recollection of life in the CCC is a testament to how important that program was for him and many young men like him during the Depression.

"It was a very interesting life for me, I'll tell you that," he said.

Today the 113 national Service and Conservation Corps workers in the Corps Network are direct descendants of the CCC. The Corps Network is joining with the Civilian Conservation Corps Legacy and the National "New Deal" Preservation Association to hold 75th anniversary celebrations throughout the country.