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College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences

CFAES
June 27, 2023 - 12:23pm -- klenovich.4@osu.edu

Megan Tenney always has a theme.

          Last year, it was bees. This year, it’s chickens. The 17-year-old 4-H’er is creating fairy gardens using red and yellow flowers to mimic the colors of chickens. The quilt she is stitching has fabric with chickens in the design.

          She’s raising a fancy breed chicken to show at the fair along with a market chicken, turkey and rabbit as well as a pet rabbit.

          Her still projects - the quilt and fairy garden - along with a cookbook she’s creating with recipes from around the world are all self-determined.

Some of her project work is based on projects she has taken over her 11 years in 4-H, including You Can Quilt and Global Gourmet.

Exhausting the book offerings, she self-determining projects

          “I’ve done most of the cooking and quilting projects,” Tenney said, so now she’s creating her own projects as self-determined. For this category, 4-H’ers design their project, setting goals and recording their activities.

          Her cookbook, she said, will be a collection of recipes and full-course meal plans featuring different countries. “I’m making it into a scrapbook.”

          Tenney said she likes the self-determined projects because she gets to be creative. “I always try something new,” she said, in order to learn something new each year.

          It’s this type of creativity that makes our 4-H judging events so interesting and exciting. It’s fun to see how 4-H’er interpreted their projects.

Gearing up for July judging and the September fair

The Wayne County 4-H program will hold its early judging from 6-9 p.m. Tuesday, July 11, at the Wayne County Fair Event Center. This is a competitive event with our volunteer judges choosing which members will get to represent Wayne County in their project area at the Ohio State Fair.

Members who are judged on July 11 will have the chance to participate in the Style Revue and Awards program at 7 p.m. Tuesday, July 18, at the Shisler Center on the OSU Wooster Campus.

Members who took clothing projects will model their garments. All project members get the chance to walk across the stage as a photo of them with their project is shown on the screen as well as a description of what they learned in the project is read by a narrator. All award winners will be announced at this event. These include the state fair representatives, outstanding project winners and special awards for garment construction.

If you know 4-H’ers participating in this event, I encourage you to come and see their creativity and hard work.

          This year will mark the first time Tenney is unable to compete in early judging because of a prior commitment. She will take her projects to our second judging event at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 8, at the Event Center.

As another first, this year, she is taking Rockets Away along with the rest of her club - Dalton-Kidron Big 4. The club annually takes a group project.

Whether it be building a rocket, designing a robot, decorating a cake, or learning about bugs, all 4-H projects are designed to inspire curiosity, build lifelong skills and fuel adventure. In 4-H, we believe that everything we do helps prepare youth for life and the workforce.

Laurie Sidle is a 4-H and Family and Consumer Sciences program assistant for Ohio State University Extension in Wayne County.
She can be reached at sidle.31@osu.edu or 330-264-8722

This article was previously published in The Daily Record.