Our Honor

 Day one of 4-H State Congress started off like all the others with state presentations.  We had six youth who earned the right at district competition to head to state competition.  Alex Evans, Tachoma Hair, Jada and Jordan McKinnon, Jaylyn McNair, and Maggie Underwood got up early, after weeks of practice, and travelled to Raleigh to represent Robeson County 4-H.  Jada McKinnon started our day with a presentation on "Making America Great Again through Literacy."  She compared against youth from Five other districts and brought home the gold in the 9-10 age division.

Next up was Maggie Underwood who taught a room full of folks in Careers and Entrepreneurship about becoming a professional video gamer.  While Maggie was speaking our guys were braving the elements outside competing in outdoor cooking.  Tachoma Hair and Jaylyn McNair both competed in beef cookery while Jordan McKinnon was grabbing for gold in Turkey char grill.  Let's just say with the three of them and all the other 4-H members from around the state cooking outside, NCState was the best smelling campus anywhere in the country.

Rounding out all of this craziness, and having to wait the longest was Alex Evans who showed folks how to decorate a cake in communications and artistic expression.  When the day was over Jada McKinnon and Jaylyn McNair both took home gold medals and Jordan McKinnon took home bronze.  Most of all I have to say I was impressed with the grace and dignity our 4-H members showed, win or lose.  They showed great character which is sometimes hard at their age.

After finishing up with presentations it was time for the Congress delegation to get checked in and ready for the rest of our events.  After reviewing the schedule, we made a plan for the rest of the night. That plan also included where we were going to dinner before returning to the Mckimmon Center on NCSU campus.  

Once on campus our youth met to go over rules and learn more about the week.  At the same time the adults met to learn and make sure we were all on the same page and ready for the week ahead.  After that it was time for greetings from our state 4-H leader, Dr. Mike Yoder and representatives from A&T University.

The highlight of the night was 4-H Honor Club Tapping.  Our own Alex Evans was tapped for this prestigious honor by Honor club member Laura Willis.  A great deal of secrecy surrounds the tapping, so Alex was surprised to see that her mom and sister and travelled all the way from Robeson County to support her during this Honor.

After all the excitement our youth watched state officer skits and had a chance to start forming their opinion of who they want to lead us in the future.  When it was time to head back to the hotel, there was a brief stop at cookout to make sure we celebrated the day with shakes and lemonade.  Finally we made it back to the hotel where everyone was glad to have time to sleep and rest up for our adventures in the morning.

Check back as we will continue to update our State 4-H Congress adventure.