Where Has the Time Gone?

By Ron Drum, Statewide 4-H Program Professional/Associate Director 4-H Resource Development

It wasn’t supposed to be “permanent” anyway, if anything ever is. It was a two-year appointment that brought me back to Maine in 2015. At the time this started I thought, “Oh two years! That’s a good long time!” Then I blinked and it was gone.

Turns out that two years isn’t very long at all.

In fact, some folks who knew me back when I was here in the ’90s haven’t yet even realized that I returned! And now I’ve left again! That’s right, I’m gone again. I’ve returned to Pennsylvania, back where I started.

But my-oh-my what a two years it has been. I wouldn’t trade these last two years for anything. I really don’t think I deserved them. After all, I had already been given 6.5 years as a member of UMaine’s State 4-H Staff in the 1990s to live and work in Maine. So I was beside myself to actually get to come back to live in and work in and enjoy the state of Maine for two more years!

That’s two more winters (although the 2015 winter wasn’t much, the 2016 winter, with not one but TWO BLIZZARDS, kind of made up for it),

Wells Conference Center on the UMaine Orono campus. That’s my briefcase sitting against the snow.

Yes, that is snow on the ground in April. I know it happens, but still!

two more mud seasons (what those from the lower 47 call “spring”),

two more summers (well, two Julys at least),

Hannibal Hamlin’s grave Mt Hope Cemetery, Bangor July 23, 2016.

I hope it is Halloween! Otherwise, I need to see a DOCTOR!

and, the season I REALLY enjoy, two more autumns filled with orange pumpkins and children’s laughter and wonderful, colorful autumn Leaves — and don’t forget National 4-H Week!

In a previous blog post, called “Maine, the Way Gifts Should Be,” I spoke of the wonders of Maine so I won’t repeat myself here. Just know, if you haven’t read that post, or don’t know from personal experience, the wonders of Maine are truly wonderful. They, in fact, can take your breath away!

But when I was here in the ’90s, it was all about the programs happening right then. We were developing teen conferences, and establishing experiences like Maine 4-H Days; it was all about the Animal Science Commodity Committees and 4-H Volunteer Forums; it was all about who was representing Maine at the Eastern States Exposition, National 4-H Congress, Citizenship Washington Focus, and National 4-H Conference. It was all about working with so many wonderful people, too many to list, just to make Maine 4‑H happen.

This time around it was different. This time, it was all about learning new stuff! To use the words of a recent Maine 4-H Camper, “I learned things I didn’t even know existed!” This time the work was partly about the future — program evaluation to make our best better, utilizing online meeting technology to reach new audiences, exploiting new technologies such as Virtual Reality to enhance the learning experience —

and partly about YOU — establishing a 4-H Volunteer recognition program so our volunteers know they are truly needed and appreciated and, so I could tell their stories, learning about all the wonderful Maine people who have helped, and continue to help, make Maine 4‑H the great program it is today.

And I got to tell those stories to the WORLD!

We did that primarily by establishing the 4-H Fix blog. Through it we met folks like Kay and Virginia Ward, Lydia Schofield, Betsy Carroll Anastasoff, F. Harold Bickford, not one, but TWO Maine 4-H Brownie Browns (Mildred and Harold), Evelyn Trotzky, and SO many more! This isn’t even CLOSE to a complete list! What great people live here in Maine! What great fun it was to learn your stories and even GREATER fun TELLING your stories!

But that’s all over now. My two year hitch is up and I am back in Pennsylvania. So what about this blog? Now that I’ve left, is this the end of the 4-H Fix?

Well, perhaps not an “end” but change is certainly in the wind! Stories from now through the end of this year will appear once per month. I’ll have a few more this fall. In October read all about Maine 4-H Clubs and in November the Maine 4-H Champions take center stage. My final post will appear in December; that one being all about 4‑H Singing! However, you’ll also see at least one story by someone else this fall and maybe more next year, time will tell. However, next month, September, look forward to a story by Laura Wilson. She’ll tell you all about a UMaine 4-H experience called “Follow a Researcher®” or FAR for short.

But for this post, let’s end with yet another story! This one is not a Maine 4-H story (but I wish it were!) or even about Maine at all. It is a 4-H story from the days long past, before there was a “4-H” in Maine; almost before 4-H existed anywhere.

The year was 1910. What we call “4-H” today was then just in its infancy, not even a “real” program yet. Just some young people in clubs working on projects under the guidance of Extension educators. To help people learn what value could be had from “Extension Club Work,” eleven Club Members from various places across the country were identified as being exemplary in their project work. These eleven young men had achieved substantial successes under extraordinarily difficult conditions proving just how good this new “club-work” idea was! They were awarded scholarships and given other material prizes (farm animals, equipment, and so forth). They were also sent to Washington, D.C. as Extension Club Work representatives. They got to see the sites of the city while meeting with various dignitaries to explain what they were learning and doing.

One of those dignitaries was the President of the United States, William Howard Taft. After making a bit of “small talk” and hearing them each tell their extraordinary success stories, Taft turned to one of them and asked, “Do you think you can do as well next year?”

“I think I can do better,” came the response.

It became the standard by which 4-H has guided itself ever since. To Make the Best Better. 4-H’ers continue to do this every day and, as far as we know, will continue to do so for a long time yet to come.

Given what I’ve seen here in Maine, I know this will be the case here! Thank you for letting me be a part of it! Now TWICE!

For your next 4-H Fix, return in September when we will take you on a 4-H journey to the FAR corners of the earth but you really only have to travel as far as this blog!

Were you a 4-H Member?

UMaine 4-H wants to hear your story. Please take a moment to fill out our short form and Tell Us Your Story!

Click here to learn how to support UMaine 4-H.

University of Maine Cooperative Extension conducts the state’s most successful out-of-school youth educational program through 4-H, a positive youth development program that has been empowering young people in Maine to reach their full potential since 1913.

My Hands to Larger Service

By Ron Drum, Statewide 4-H Program Professional/Associate Director 4-H Resource Development

We each remember stuff, I assume, from our childhoods. I do, at least. I’m not talking about the great big things like the day you fell face-first into the birthday cake or that wedding where you learned how to do the Polka or that time you got soaked at the water park. I’m talking about those little things like that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you know you’ve just been caught in a lie or the feeling of glee when you realize your BROTHER has just been caught in a lie! That feeling of, well, warmth that comes over you when your mom’s eyes tear up as she opens that special present you made for her for Mother’s Day or that moment of pleasure that hits you upon hearing your dad chuckle over a joke you just told. Memories like those, I mean.

One such memory I’m a bit ashamed of is that stomach burn I’d get when mom or dad would give me a chore to do like weed the garden or dust the shelves or clean my room. These are things I should have been doing; I just didn’t want to. Me!? Do WORK!?

It wasn’t that I was lazy; okay, it was. It seems most kids are. Okay, not “lazy” REALLY but, knowing what I now know about young people, I think most young people tend not to want to do such things. Video games, or watching cartoons on TV in my day, are much more fun than pulling weeds from around the tomato plants or running a dust cloth over some old books on a shelf! Unless you find a spider to chase — just saying.

So what genius was it that thought up the idea to ask 4-H Members to do Community Service!? Same thing. Bigger context. Me!? Do WORK!? Well, whoever that genius was, he or she certainly WAS a genius. Years of 4-H Community Service projects by millions of 4-H’ers — even a line in the 4‑H pledge (“My hands to larger service”) — attest to that!

4-H’ers across the country, happily or not, spread out through their communities every day to do good deeds and be helpful! They conduct clothing drives for the homeless, paint barns at the local fairgrounds, clean up litter at the local park, etc., etc., etc. Kids, working, doing community chores, burning stomachs or not!

And Maine 4-H’ers are no different. Had you heard about the “Forgotten Cemeteries Clean-up Project” conducted by the Pittston Pony Tails 4-H Club? They started it in October of 2001.

We cleaned up the Lapham Family cemetery on top of a hill overlooking the Kennebec River in Pittston. The children raked up old leaves and cleaned up stones and helped map the gravesites of the loved ones buried in this old cemetery. Adult volunteers had to cut down several old, dead trees to gain access into the yard. We also placed American flags at the opening of the yard to symbolize the presence of War Vets in this site. — Cheryl Peaslee, Club Leader.

Then they went on to do like-wise at two more “forgotten cemeteries” earning the honor of being named one of Pittston’s “Unsung Heroes” by the Pittston Spirit of America Committee. The Pittston Selectmen, in a hand-written note, said that Cheryl and the Pony Tails 4‑H Club “deserve every recognition possible.”

Timmy Clemetson

Then there is Timmy Clemetson who, in 2015, helped build raised gardens for the residents of Belfast’s Edward Reynolds House and Houlton’s Kate Newman who cooked up a way to help feed a whole community, once a month, from October through April, and did so again this year (2016-17), FOURTH year running!

Kate Newman

And, of course, there are many, many, similar stories! The question is, in addition to Timmy and Kate, what other recent community service projects have Maine 4‑H’ers been doing?

Well, we did a survey last fall to try to find that out. The survey request was a little late, something new added to already too-full “to do” lists, so not everyone was able to get the survey completed. We are sure we did not get reported even half of what was done. Still the information rolled in. And even knowing what we thought we already knew, the results, partial as they were, were astounding!

Projects reported via this survey included improving fairgrounds, providing assistance to local shelters, improving community nutrition through community gardens, planting flowers at the rec center, clothing drives for needy families, children and teen mentoring, donations of blankets to Veterans homes, food to food banks, increasing civic pride through community parade participation, literacy campaigns, and dressing up cemeteries by cleaning and placing US Flags on graves before Memorial and Veterans Days.

Clubs reporting service projects in 2016 indicated that although a few took as long as 300 or more hours to complete, half of all the projects reported took less than ten hours to complete, some as short as only one hour! Thirty-three percent of the reported projects spent $50 or less to complete, some nothing at all, yet hundreds of people were reported as having been helped in some manner.

In addition to the communities and individual lives being improved, the 4-H’ers, themselves, according to the survey results, found benefit, and FUN, in doing this work. Growth experienced by the 4-H’ers that was reported included: organizational skills, leadership helping younger children with service tasks, time management, critical thinking skills, learning to be responsible, willingness to help others with nothing expected in return, planning skills, decision making skills, empathy, and a sense of pride.

Comments received included:

• “They continually want to help others.”
• “Because of the work with cemeteries they are now very interested in their ancestors.”
• “I think that we all had a lot of fun and enjoyed helping make the fairgrounds look better. With every project we do we learn more about why community service is important.”
• “The youth had a great time sharing what 4-H is to them.”

You know, reading over those reports, well, it made me happy, like that time my dad chuckled over one of my jokes; and warm, you know, like that time my mom’s eyes teared up as she opened that special present I made for her for Mother’s Day.

Just a bunch of lazy kids? Not Maine’s 4-H’ers!

Has your club done a 4-H Community Service Project lately? Why not send us a note and tell us about it? If you do you might just end up in a 4-H Fix!

For the next The 4-H Fix we offer an end and a beginning! Find out what that is all about on August 18!

Were you a 4-H Member?

UMaine 4-H wants to hear your story. Please take a moment to fill out our short form and Tell Us Your Story!

Click here to learn how to support UMaine 4-H.

University of Maine Cooperative Extension conducts the state’s most successful out-of-school youth educational program through 4-H, a positive youth development program that has been empowering young people in Maine to reach their full potential since 1913.

Steering Youth Gee, Haw, and Even Waheesh But Never Back!

By Ron Drum, Statewide 4-H Program Professional/Associate Director 4-H Resource Development

Maine 4-H Foundation booth at the Fryeburg Fair.

When you staff a 4-H Information Booth at a county fair anywhere, the days begin to blur together. I think it was Sunday but it could’ve been Monday or even Tuesday of the 2016 Fryeburg Fair that a fellow wearing a maroon and white Texas A&M ball cap approached the Maine 4-H Foundation booth and asked me with his full-blown, deep Texas Southern drawl, “Why do I never see 4-H Working Steer projects anywhere else but here in New England, and why especially so much here in Maine? Where did it come from?”

Seems this Texan visits New England each fall, stopping first at the Big E (Eastern States Exposition) in Massachusetts and then comes up to Maine for the Fryeburg Fair. He said he especially enjoys watching the 4-H Members working their teams of oxen at both fairs and wondered why he doesn’t see this very much anywhere else.

You know, he’s right. All six New England States each have at least one 4-H Working Steer Club (Connecticut and Rhode Island share a club) and New York State recently began looking at establishing a club there. But, except for a scattering of project members here or there elsewhere, that seems to be about it. However, here in New England there are approximately 10 clubs total with four of those here in Maine. Maine 4-H presently has around 30 young people working a team of working steers as a 4-H project.

That Texan asked good questions! New England is known for many things and one of them is indeed the 4-H Working Steer project! But why?

Well, here’s Paul but where’s the Ox?

I’m sure someone knows for sure why working steer is so prevalent in New England. Folks I’ve talked to with some knowledge about things like this tell me that my assumption is probably pretty close to being right. By the way, my assumption (based on Paul Bunyan and the big blue ox stories) is that the answer comes from the fact that oxen were used to great benefit by the logging industry to drag the harvested trees out of the woods, back in the day, that is, making Working Steer teams quite usual and necessary for a great many people in Maine and New England, a huge part of the way of life here. In fact, according to Maine 4-H alum Heidi Thuotte-Palmer, unofficially Maine’s 4‑H Working Steer guru but officially the UMaine 4-H State Activities Coordinator, working steers helped create much of Maine’s history and heritage, even explaining why many of the roads are laid out as they are in Maine towns! She said that those big traffic circles, often called rotaries, sometimes called roundabouts (or other names I won’t go into), found at many intersections of the older towns, are there as the result of the need for the large turning area required by the ox teams pulling those long ship masts!

So it wasn’t long before some smart 4-H educator saw the benefit of teaching the techniques of managing a team of oxen to our young people as a 4-H Project. In the animal science world, this 4-H project is almost a holistic thing! It covers animal anatomy both inside and out (what makes a good ox vs. a bad one), breeds (for the same reason!), nutrition (what to feed it and when), biology, generics, health, medicine (keeping it healthy but knowing when it is sick AND how to make it better). The 4‑H’ers need to know about things like Ringworm (which, by the way, isn’t a worm, but a fungus) and foot rot and bloat and external parasites like ticks and lice and internal parasites like Roundworms and Tapeworms (both of which ARE worms); not to forget Coccidiosis (don’t ask. It has to do with poop and it’s yucky)! Now we haven’t even begun to talk about bacteria and viruses yet! Anyway, the 4-H’ers need to know about all this steer stuff and we haven’t even gotten to the WORKING part of the project yet, managing the animals’ behavior (also called training them!).

Heidi told me, “The 4-H Working Steer project is all of it times two plus three! It’s all of the animal science stuff times two (to cover the two animals in the team) plus three (the member training the ox team how to work together)! It takes a lot of work, time, and effort to be successful. It means being responsible and caring. You even need to be a psychologist! You need to understand the psychology of the animal; why does it do what it does so you can be successful getting it to do what you want it to do!”

Of course, the next question is: In what state was that smart 4-H educator located? Maine obviously claims that honor. So does New Hampshire. In the 4-H Working Steer world, such a duality seems to happen a lot! Here in Maine itself, it seems two counties each think one of their 4-H Clubs was the first Working Steer 4-H Club in Maine! Franklin County has their Franklin County Working Steer 4-H Club and Cumberland County has their Brass Knobs Working Steer 4-H Club, both clubs, apparently, beginning in 1963. Even within the Brass Knobs 4-H Club, you will find this duality. Mark Winslow and Heidi, as 4-H volunteers, worked together in 1983 to keep the club active after the original club leader stepped aside.

Well, why shouldn’t duality be the working steer model? The 4-H Working Steer project is all about TEAMS!

Even Heidi’s first exposure to 4-H was as one of two! She was eight years old in 1971 when she joined the Brass Knobs Working Steer 4-H Club, one of only two girls; the first girls to join the approximately 10 boys already in the club. She remained a member of the club until she “graduated” out of 4-H 10 years later only to return to the club two years later as one of its leaders.

Mark and Heidi also teamed up to build up the Working Steer youth program at the Big E. Open to all youth interested in working steer teams, the participation is mostly, if not all, 4-H’ers. Heidi became the Big E Working Steer Superintendent in 2012.

To know her today, as a 4-H professional, Big-E Superintendent, and all of her other many roles, both official and unofficial, you’d never know that, “I used to be so shy you couldn’t get me out of the corner!” I asked her, “So what changed?” She answered with a number and a letter, “4-H!” Then she added, “All the things you do in 4-H. Working the animals, showing them, giving presentations, being an officer in a club; it brings you out of your shell.”

If you know Heidi, it’s hard to imagine Heidi ever being IN a shell! And listening to the stories she tells of being a 4-H Volunteer and of her professional State 4-H Activities role, makes you realize just how important what we do in 4-H as adults, paid or volunteer, really is. Her stories tell of people who identify their 4-H years as the reason they have the successes they have in their lives today and many of those people identify her, Heidi, as being the one who helped them realize that difference. “When you get invited to kids’ weddings, you know you’ve made a difference,” she exclaims. A number of people credit Heidi as the reason they even stayed in 4-H — and she has the letters to prove it! However, perhaps the one person that means the most to Heidi that identified 4-H as the reason she is what she is today is, of course, her own daughter, Katie.

Heidi and Katie.

Katie Thuotte Holland is now a Registered Nurse (RN) living in Fort Kent and working at Cary Medical Center in Caribou, Maine. This 2013 UM Fort Kent graduate (BS Nursing) told her mom that 4-H was the reason she chose to be a nurse. Her 4-H projects were all about caring for her animals (“In 10 years as a 4-H Member, she never once missed on taking care of her animals,” proud Heidi told me) but Heidi said 4-H taught Katie to care about people!

My bet is that by now you’re wondering if, or when, I’m going to get around to explaining those strange words in the title of this post. Once you know them, you’ll understand the title. Those from the working steer world already understand it because they know that these are commands used to get the ox team to move in the directions you want it to go. You see, if you want the team to turn left you say “HAW!” Saying “GEE” tells them to turn right. “Waheesh” is another way of saying “Giddyup” meaning get going, and the command to back up is simply “Back.”

So in 4-H, we try to steer the 4-H Members in the right direction for a positive future; Gee, Haw, or just “Waheesh”; but, like Heidi will tell you, when it comes to kids, “Back” is never part of the equation!

As for this post, let’s just say “whoa,” the command for stop.

On July 14 the 4-H Fix is all about Community Service. It makes the line in the 4-H Pledge “my Hands to larger service” come ALIVE!

Were you a 4-H Member?

UMaine 4-H wants to hear your story. Please take a moment to fill out our short form and Tell Us Your Story! And don’t forget! Go to 4-H.org/RaiseYourHand to vote for MAINE and show your pride as a MAINE 4-H alum! The Raise Your Hand contest ends on June 30, so if you haven’t voted already, do so today!

Click here to learn how to support UMaine 4-H.

University of Maine Cooperative Extension conducts the state’s most successful out-of-school youth educational program through 4-H, a positive youth development program that has been empowering young people in Maine to reach their full potential since 1913.