Gem State Adventist Academy early 1930s were 12 cents an hour for boys and 10 cents an hour for girls. At Gem State, the 1941 and 1942 yearbooks were dedicated to those students and former students who had gone to serve in the war, some of whom had been killed in action. After the war a bakery was built to increase student employment opportunities; it ultimately became the Rhodes Bake-N-Serv Company. In the 1960s, while President John Kennedy was planning to put men on the moon, and Martin Luther King Jr. was fighting for civil rights, the Idaho Conference of Seventh-day Adventists were planning
SS Gem State (T-ACS-2) with American President Lines. She was converted to a MARAD type (C6-S-1qc) container ship, in 1973, and continued to be operated by APL until delivered to the Maritime Administration in 1982 for lay up in the National Defense Reserve Fleet (NDRF). In 1984–1985 she was converted to a type (C6-S-MA1qd) Crane Ship by Continental Marine, San Francisco, CA. She was placed in service as SS "Gem State" (ACS-2) 7 May 1984, assigned to the Military Sealift Command (MSC) Ready Reserve Force, (RRF). "Gem State" is one of 10 Crane Ships in the Surge Force and is berthed at Alameda, CA,