Megan Thorson, 4-H Update

The Freeborn County Fair was a busy time for many 4-H’ers, their parents, staff and other volunteers within the 4-H program. Unlike some neighboring states that let any 4-H’ers attend state fair, Minnesota State Fair trips are earned. The county has so many trips given for every project area (livestock and non-livestock). The non-livestock trips are determined by the actual number of exhibits that are at the county fair, and the livestock trips are determined by the previous year’s exhibitors at the county and state fair. There are also opportunities to get extra trips for livestock. One is a bonus trip that volunteers have to apply for in the spring of every year. These are awarded depending on the quality of the animals exhibited at state fair the previous years or the quality of programming that was done by the county. The other extra trips that could be awarded would be for showmanship. This was the second year of the showmanship extra trips. They are awarded depending on how many 4-H’ers exhibit in the showmanship class. This last year we received showmanship trips for every species and also received bonus trips for swine, beef and goats.

Youth in 4-H take a lot of time keeping their animals in prime condition for the three weeks between county and state fair. They stay busy working with their animals and feeding them right to make them look the best for the show up at state fair.

The staff appreciates all of the parents and volunteers who help these 4-H’ers get up to state fair. Many volunteers help haul animals and kids. As well as having all of these volunteers, we also have a county semi to help haul animals that families cannot haul themselves and a bus to haul many kids up to the state fair. The bus and semi are provided free to 4-H’ers and paid for by auction dollars that are accumulated from the county fair livestock auction. This year, we had 50 4-H’ers exhibit non-livestock projects and 82 4-H’ers exhibit livestock during the fair. We were fortunate and very thankful to have eight adult chaperones volunteer their time to help and stay overnight with those kids.

Not only did we have all of these youth exhibit at state fair, but we also had two state ambassadors from our county that stayed up at state fair for the entire 12 days. Alex Golbuff from the Hayward Club and Jake Reed from the Hartland Club represented Freeborn County and were fortunate enough to help with many activities during those 12 days. They were able to be greeters at the 4-H building, help at the various livestock shows and help at the information booth in the 4-H building, just to name a few. We were very lucky to have two ambassadors out of 25 from around the state.

Look for pictures and results of state fair in future editions of the Albert Lea Tribune.

Megan Thorson is the 4-H program coordinator for the Freeborn County Extension Service.