For a couple years of my childhood, I participated in the 4-H. For those of you who don’t know what it is, 4-H is a youth development program that is part of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s (NIFA) Cooperative Extension System (CES). NIFA is an agency within the United States Department of Agriculture. CES is part of the Land-Grant University System, which was created with the intention of increasing educational opportunities for the working class population, especially farmers and ranchers. 4-H helps to prepare youth for work and life by teaching useful skills through hands-on experiences.

I grew up in a rural town, a farming town. The town’s area is about forty square miles, and there are over thirty farms. There were also fewer than 10,000 people living there when I was growing up. In addition to all that, the World Wide Web didn’t go live until I was in Middle School, so the skills youth were learning when I was a child are a bit different than the skills youth are learning these days, especially during the remote and virtual learning days of Covid-19.

So what did I learn in 4-H? I signed up for sewing, cooking, photography, and dairy. I really enjoyed sewing, and to this day I say I’m going to get a sewing machine and try my hand at it again. I’ve had plans to make a t-shirt quilt for, oh, I’d say close to 30 years. I made a skirt the first year, and a jumper the next. I liked the puzzle part of sewing; following the pattern, making individual parts, and then piecing them all together.

Cooking was fun, but I learned more about cooking by hanging out in my mom’s and grandma’s kitchens. I learned even more from working in the hospitality industry for 25 years. Following a recipe is easy, but making a dish unique and tasty is where the challenge lies, and what requires experience. I definitely have experience in eating! I remember completing an assignment in my early elementary years that asked what my favorite subjects were. I wrote “lunch.”

I loved my photography class. I had taken photography as an activity at my summer camp, too, so I already knew I would enjoy it. I still have dreams of being a photojournalist for a food magazine. In that dream I can travel around the world eating delicious foods, taking pictures of the meals and locations, and then writIng about the experience. I guess I should buy a camera. Everything seems to be digital and captured on iPhones these days, but one of the best parts of photography was developing my own pictures in the dark room. I was, and am still, envious of the woman who led the 4-H photography class; she had a dark room in her house! Maybe I’ll have a she-shed dark room at a future home of mine.

Dairy was quite the memorable experience. I was assigned a local farm and a calf to walk. I would walk my cow up and down the center of the barn. All of the adult heifers were facing away from me, so I was always paranoid that I would get donkey-kicked by a cow. We also learned to clean their hooves and give them hair cuts. When people ask me about where I grew up, I like to tell them I walked cows as a way of describing where I’m from. I won first place in Showmanship at the county fair. I loved that trophy with the gold cow on top. I also won first place in the clipping contest. What’s a clipping contest? Whoever does the best job cutting all of the cow’s hair in less than 10 minutes wins! It cracks me up just knowing things like this exist.

4-H exists to help youth to develop skills that they can use to support their homes and communities. Although I don’t take care of cows or sew anything other than buttons, I did improve upon life skills like problem-solving, reading and following directions, finishing what I start, and creative thinking. I loved the experiences, especially the ones I probably wouldn’t have otherwise had, like caring for cows and developing my own photos. I hope to get my daughter involved. It’s a good thing 4-H helped me to develop time management skills, too!

What clubs did you join as a kid?