Monday, October 5, 2009

Booth Education

One of the neat things about the Robeson Regional Agricultural Fair are the educational booths. With no youth shows on Sunday it is the perfect time to check out all the booths. This year to help celebrate the 4-H Centennial the booths got a special location in the Commercial Exhibits building. If you stop by you just can’t help but be amazed. Our theme this year was the 4-H Centennial and it brought out some really neat ideas.

Voices in Praise 4-H club took first place with their booth on sewing. It is full of different items created as part of 4-H projects and looks nice and warm and cozy as these nights start to get chilly. This is a fun booth that just makes people smile.

Young leaders took second place with a timeline of our 4-H history. Some of the old county scrapbooks on display and the clover is everywhere. They highlighted some of our past programs and current programs with their work on their very colorfully green booth. For some of our 4-H Alumni and long time volunteers this stroll through memory lane will be a lot of fun for you.

The St. Paul’s Pony club members put together a horse skeleton that is on display. They members have learned all the bones of the horse and even had to learn how to make them and wire them together. The process has taken lots of man hours but the members and volunteers are thrilled with all that has been done. They also have a display with a diagram of a horses brain and much more. If you like horses this booth will captivate you.

The Horsin’ Around 4-H club put together a booth with a past and present theme. They also show the different 4-H projects that the club works on and showed off their spirit in a horsy sort of way. This is a neat representation of this very young club, young in that it is full of cloverbuds (5-8 year olds). Check it out and their work will put a smile on your face.
Bladen County joined our fun this year as well.

The Junior Fair Board members also created a centennial booth with a little help from Cumberland County. They put up a lot of information about our 4-H history in it. There are also some really neat antiques that you might want to go in and check out to remember how it used to be. This booth is really educational about the centennial and what 4-H was about.

You don’t want to miss the “Lighten’ Electric 4-H Club”. Their booth is a made to scale kitchen with old items like a wood burning stove and newer items like a refrigerator. The kitchen table is even half old half new. This booth is worth just standing in front of for awhile and admiring the handiwork and counting how many items you can identify.

Future Leaders set up their first booth this. It is a representation of the club members during meetings etc. The tree in the backdrop representing the growth of these youth as they move through our 4-H program.

Inspirational Youth Leaders is making their premiere appearance at the fair. Their booth highlights the past with really neat items like an old (and very heavy) phone, cotton picker, and coffee grinder. They highlight the present with photos of their youth in club activities. This is one of our newest clubs and they are up and coming in our county program. This was an excellent booth and the youth should be congratulated on their efforts during the year.

The Bladen county Ambassador program set up a booth highlighting everything about 4-H. 4-H Ambassadors are teens who go through different levels of training to market 4-H to other youth. We know that youth will learn from other youth faster than from adults. Our Ambassadors in a way serve as 4-H recruiters and marketers for our county and state program. They are trained to handle the media, public speeches, presentations and are a great assets to our programs. This booth highlights everything that 4-H can do for a young person.

The last booth is our “Dirty Rascals” Junior Master Gardener 4-H club booth. Their centennial theme was celebrating the past, present and future. They show youth in all three eras. Of course since our JMG’s are concerned with ecology and the future the youth in the future are wearing recyclables, rather fashionable recyclables at that. The youth also recorded a narrative about the history of 4-H, what it means to them now, and what they think it will be like 100 years from now.

So if you have a chance check out these booths between ribs, rides, and deep fried goodies. I think you will be pleasantly surprised at all they and our 4-H members and volunteers have to offer.

No comments: