Robeson County 4-H

Below is a column by Everett Davis, County Extension Director for the Robeson County Center of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service, that we thought our 4-H bloggers would enjoy. The article talks about an upcoming youth program that some of our 4-H'ers are involved in as well as an upcoming plant sale where one of our clubs will be raising money for their club activities. This article was published in Thursday's edition of the Robesonian. "According to the weatherman, it will be a beautiful weekend. We have complained for the last several months about snow, rain, cold, wind, and other uncomfortable weather conditions, so we are due a beautiful spring weekend. I encourage you to take advantage of it. Let me give you some suggestions of what to do this coming weekend. I know you have your own plans and several other groups and agencies want some of your time as well, but I encourage you to plan your time so you can work both of these worthwhile events into...

The bell has rung and we are on round two of our ever popular embryology program. 20 Robeson County classrooms have eggs in incubators waiting for the upcoming hatch. The expectant date is May 12th. In the meantime we will be visiting classrooms eradicating germs, and checking on the soon to be chicks. Stay tuned to the 4-H embryology network for more information.

How could I help but notice the photo in the paper last week of the students holding chicks that they had hatched in their classroom, right before Easter? How many people realize that the Embryology Project (hatching the chicks) they did is a 4-H project? I know a lot of people are thinking that it has to do with farm animals, so it makes sense that it is a 4-H project. Believe it or not, after 100 years (yes, this is our centennial), we do so much more than just cows and cooking. Back when 4-H started, there were two kinds of clubs - boys' corn growing clubs and girls' canning clubs. Today, we have four kinds of clubs - community clubs, project clubs, specialty clubs, and in-school clubs. Clubs now include both boys and girls and are very easy to start - you just need one adult volunteer and five youth. Community clubs are simply 4-H clubs based in the community. They work on a variety of 4-H projects and activities, including community service, county competitions, and...

We had 15 little chicks hatch out of 19 (or about 80% hatch rate) which is fairly good. Most of the classrooms reporting in have had good hatches. Oxendine school dropped off their incubators today and I spoke with their principal and he seemed very pleased with how it turned out and they are looking forward to next year already. A few classrooms only had a few but have been able to trace the problems back to inconsistent turning, not enough water in the incubators or drafty locations. So far everyone seems to want to try again next year and we sure are looking forward to that. So far this year we have had a successful 4-H embryology project with our classrooms. 25 signed up for the first part and another 18 classrooms will take part starting Monday, April 20. Probably the most notable difference for us this year is the number of teachers that are talking about the amount of support they are receiving from their principals this year. We have even noted more principals coming t...

We are having an egg-celent adventure with our embryology project. This morning I came into the office and there were eight more chicks in the incubator with four more getting ready to break out. I moved the chicks to the brooder box (with the three that hatched yesterday) and the 4-H staff is cheering on the soon to be chicks, still in the incubator, through their hatching process. I spoke with a teacher from Rowland Norment yesterday and they have almost 100% hatched. Also East Robeson called and said every student in her class got to see a chick come out of it's egg. She said they just kept coming and coming and coming. The secretary at Oxendine reported that they were having the best time with the project and they had chicks just about everywhere. We are looking forward to talking with more teachers today and we will let you know what the other schools are reporting.

Classrooms all over Robeson County are in labor today as the baby chicks start hatching. This is the final part of our embryology project. We are getting reports in from across the county, Rowland Normant school has one classroom with nine chicks and two more getting ready to hatch. One classroom at Magnolia had four trying to hatch yesterday. Fairmont Middle is so egg-cited about their embryology after school project that they even linked a web cam to their incubator to let the world check in on their hatching progress. If you click on the link above just give it a few seconds for it to load the image, and see what you can see...feel free to check back often. Here at the 4-H office we have two out and five more on the way. Stay tuned to the 4-H Embryology network for more news of our hatches.

It was time for our quarterly 4-H County Council/Leaders' Association Meeting and this one broke all sorts of records. Almost 90 people turned out for the meeting that allows members and volunteers to help shape our county program. On the agenda were the typical things, updates on recent programs, and awards. Did that say awards? That's right project record winners were announced and given their checks. The cloverbuds are non competitive. Each received a $5.00 check for their hard work. In that 5-8 year old category under animal science are Logan Spivey and Ashley Rogers both of Twin State 4-H Club, Christian Tice of the St. Pauls' 4-H Pony Club, and Kashawn Cooper of the Voices in Praise 4-H Club. Amaria Rogers of the Young Leaders Club complete a Public Speaking project record book while Jasmine McBride of the Voices in Praise 4-H Club completed three books in Consumer and Family Science, Environment and Natural Resources and Community Service. The 9-10 year ...

When we started the year we talked about celebrating our 4-H centennial in North Carolina. What better way to celebrate than have almost 30 different acts get up on stage at the Carolina Civic Center and proudly show the talent of our youth in this year's Entertains talent competition, part over our overall talent showcase. The tri-county competition (Bladen, Hoke, and Robeson Counties) started with the cloverbuds, those 5-8 year olds that perform but are not in competition. After Adelmo Wyrtko and Regina Koch, of the St. Paul's 4-H Pony Club took us on a bear hunt, a very cute comedy duo of Juliann and Briana Campbell of the Roots and Shoots 4-H Club, tickled our funny bone with a routine that included chickens and roads, and Christian Tice of the St. Paul's 4-H Pony Club was "Putting on the Ritz" and dancing up a storm. The five performers took their bows on the very large stage and received participant ribbons and $5.00 Arch Cards. Next up was the 9-10 year o...

Celebrate and graduate. That was what our night was all about as 7 families graduated from the first Strengthening Families program in Robeson County. The joint Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) and 4-H program brought families in for six weeks straight and then we followed up a few weeks later with the last session. During our last session we recapped what we learned, and parents talked about some of the resources available in our community. During Family time the parents and youth wrote letters to each other that will be mailed out in a couple of weeks to remind them of the things they learned and show how much they love each other. During the youth session the youth talked about the different things they had learned and how they have applied their new skills to their everyday lives. Some of those skills include how to be more respectful handle peer pressure, how to make better decisions, how to chose your friends, how to of parents and siblings, how to be more helpful arou...

The Peay brothers joined forces with J4 as both families preformed for the Early show judges this morning. Both families performed "Dancing in the Street" and had everyone on the morning show, cost to cost dancing. After once again winning the judges admiration it was time for the announcement of the winning family. Although the Peay family did not receive the record contract you could not ask for more gracious gentlemen as they sincerely congratulated the members of J4 and their supporters. This just goes to show that hard work and persverance and setting those big goals can get you far in life. We are sure this is just the beginning for both very talented families and will be checking in and updating you on their future.