Putting a shirt on the world’s back

A hot ink smell hangs heavily in the back room of Wild West
Shirtworks, where Ronnie Gorder and a dozen coworkers are
cranking out enough t-shirts to clothe tourists from
Anchorage to the Alamo.

By TOM LUTEY Chronicle Staff Writer

A six-spoked wheel with t-shirts sleeved over every spoke
trundles in front of the 33-year-old Gorder, who stops each
one just long enough to apply a thin layer of ink. The
pause is no longer than the moment between inhaling and
exhaling.

Each shirt gets screened up to six times, one screen of ink for each color. In this fashion, the
Wild West crew silk screens 24,000 shirts a week. Basically it’s been done this way since 1974
when owner Don Cowles first opened shop on Main Street.

"The pay isn’t too bad, if you break quota," says Gorder, who is busily silk screening his way into
the bonus round. "Thirty-three dozen six-screen (shirts), that’s when it kicks in."

Chances are, if you’re wearing a t-shirt from Yellowstone National Park, Ronnie Gorder or one
of his coworkers printed the design. His handiwork hangs from the shoulders of tourists from
Homer, Alaska, to the Smoky Mountains.

After 10 years, Gorder is one of the fastest silk screeners in the plant. His best time of 6,102
screen applications in one day has been posted on the Silk Screener’s wall of champions for
four years. It won’t be knocked off until someone surpasses it.

Ever see those 2001 Montana Grizzly I-AA National Football Championship t-shirts? That’s
Ronnie Gorder. He and the other silk screeners at Wild West worked through the night after the
championship game so there would be t-shirts to sell when stores opened the next day. Gorder,
by the way, is a Montana State University Bobcat fan.

Remember the 1998 Denver Bronco Super Bowl championship jerseys? That was Ronnie
Gorder. In fact Wild West Shirtworks has printed Super Bowl t-shirts for every championship
game John Elway played in.

In the days after the Sept. 11 terrorists attacks, Gorder and his coworkers printed American flag
t-shirts into the tens of thousands, which were then sold all over the country. It’s hard to go out
and not see someone wearing his work.

"Actually, when I went to Homer, Alaska, I walked into a shirt shop and saw our stuff," Gorder
said. "And the girl behind the counter was going to school in Bozeman to be an accountant.
This is a small world."

Led Zeppelin blares through a shop radio speaker as the spokes keep serving up t-shirts to
screen. Just when it appears Gorder will run out of shirts to print, co-worker Jim Brady
materializes with another high stack of t-shirts and a new screen design.

Tom Lutey is at [email protected]

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