The Home Pioneer 4-H Club had one of their biggest years in its rich history in 2019. The club was founded 74 years ago in rural Atlanta and many of the original families are still involved today.
Four years ago, the club had 23 members. This year, the club had 63 members sign-up, with 59 finishing the year by attending at least half the club meetings and presenting a demonstration speech. The club had 16 Clover Kids, ages 5-7. Our goal for the 2019-2020 year is to sign up more than 70 members to participate.
The club will kick off its new year with a nacho bar event at the home of Jeremy and Mindy Schneider on Tuesday, September 24 at 6:30 P.M. Our club only meets the fourth Tuesday of every month at 6:30 P.M. We do not meet in December, July or August.
The county fair, Achievement Day, club meetings and demonstrations all allow members to gain soft skills like communicating with others and building confidence. Each member is also enrolled in various projects starting on November 1 and required to participate in at least six hours of instruction on that project through the year. This helps build hard skills like learning to cook, sew and raise livestock.
At Achievement Day, we had 22 members participate, up from 5 last year. Bella Baker and Jon Reuterdahl received top honors for their general demonstrations. Jon also won a top judging award for welding. Clara Fitzsimmons topped her age group for her working demonstration. Bella Baker also won her division for public speaking. Ashlyn Russell won top horse and extemporaneous speeches. Our club also hosted a beach-themed hospitality suite for members and families participating at the event.
More than 45 of our members participated in the county fair, with more than 275 entries including at least 74 champion or grand champion ribbons. Ella Carpenter helped christen the new cat show as one of the first participants in this new event. Our club also hosted its annual club carry-in at the campgrounds at the fair on Thursday night.
This year, our club hosted a Clover Kid camp with 15 members participating. Members decorated cookies at Koch’s General Store, made crafts for the fair and topped their own pizzas for lunch.
Our officers for 2018-2019 were: Aislynn Baker: President, Kohyn Wood: Vice President, Kamberly West: Secretary, Bella Baker: Treasurer, Blair Carpenter: Reporter, Sylvie Christensen: Song Leader, Gracee Butner: Parliamentarian, Kooper Wood: Chaplain, Will, Levi and Audree Butner: Sentinels, Lee Mathis: Health and Safety, Annual Trip Committee: Wood, Butner, Hulett, Club Leader: Deidre Weldon, Co-Leader: Aaron Baker, 4-H Council and Fair Board Representatives: Sarah Mathis and Deidre Weldon.
Our annual trip this year was an overnight campout at Shelby County Christian Assembly. At the event, members received awards from the club leaders, learned line dances from McKenna Nelson, enjoyed a catered dinner, hosted a “Dive-In Movie” at the pool and awarded the “Friend of Home Pioneer 4-H Award” to Angela Helton. The event was attended by more than 70 members and their family and guests.
This year, our club organized bowling on Sunday, March 3. We had many families participate in this winter recreation event for the entire county. We also participated in Show Me Quality Assurance training at the county level on March 19.
We raised all the funds for the trip from our annual wreath sales by selling 393 wreaths this year.
Our goal for the year was to continue to increase communication and activities within each project group. Parents receive notifications of project meetings in Facebook Messenger groups that relate to their child’s project. This year, our groups met for several project meetings that included activities like preparing food, touring a farmer’s market, decorating cakes, learning about livestock, scrapbooking, making arts and crafts, woodworking, curing meats, sewing, shooting sports, visiting tractor dealerships and learn more about poultry, rabbits and horsemanship.
Our community service activities included leading BINGO at La Plata Nursing Home, providing annual maintenance of the landscaping at our local toddler park in Atlanta, picking up trash at the Flywheel Reunion, preparing and serving desserts at the Atlanta Homecoming and providing security at the Expo Center at the County Fair. Our club provided sponsorships for Macon County Shooting Sports and the County Fair. We also installed new gravel around the food shack at the park in Atlanta and organized a pool-themed auction item for the county 4-H council at the county fair.
Several members participated in the NEMO Fair and the State Fair. This year, Home Pioneer member Kaela Britton won best of show in the rabbit show at the state fair. Ashlynn Russell won first place in Horsemanship. Lee Mathis, Bella Baker and Jon Reuterdahl also presented their demonstrations at the state fair. Taylin Schneider and Brody Baker attended 4-H Camp in June.
Each year, we host an international meal with a guest speaker. This year’s speaker was Beth Busick, covering the topic of Jamaica. Lee Mathis and Bella Baker served this year as members of the Macon County 4-H Ambassador group and helped serve meals at Agape Café as well as assisting at county fair livestock shows and Achievement Day as well as monthly meetings. Bella also created a video to advise members on how to give a demonstration; Lee demonstrated how to present “collections” at Achievement Day in a similar video.
This year, we implemented new project record forms that were Facebook videos. This helped our members share their 4-H story in a way that others could learn more about what we are doing as an organization. This was a huge success and our videos were shared by Missouri 4-H on social media as well. Brynlee Baker’s video was reached more than 5,755 people online.
Our strongest programs this year included Horsemanship, Scrapbooking, Rabbits, Bacon and Sewing.
To learn more, visit Atlanta Home Pioneer 4-H Club on Facebook.
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