Robyn Stewart
4-H is a key component of the University of Georgia Cooperative Extension system and Lincoln County is eager to grow and expand our 4-H offerings. Typically, each individual county extension office maintains a 4-H agent whose responsibility is to grow, develop, and maintain 4-H programs within their county. Here in Lincoln County, we are fortunate to have Jodi Coon as our 4-H program assistant managing over 300 active 4-H’ers! Lincoln County has 4-H’ers actively participating in several areas, including but not limited to District Project Achievement, Poultry Judging, and local service.
District Project Achievement (DPA) is one of the larger 4-H activities that Lincoln County participates in. Students are broken down by age group into cloverleaf (4-6th grade), junior (6-8th grade), and senior (9-12th grade) ranks and given the opportunity to research and present over a topic that interests them. Students can select their topic from over fifty different areas of interest. Some popular topics from Lincoln County include sports, performing arts, animal science (horses, dog care, cat care), food projects, and health. Students compete against other 4-H’ers within their topic category and can compete at the county, district, state, and national levels. Presentations include a 4 to 6-minute-long speech and a visual aid such as a poster. During their presentation, students are judged on the organization of their speech, researched information, thoroughness of coverage of the topic, visual aid/poster quality, and general delivery. Based on initial sign ups, Lincoln County will be sending 61 students to Cloverleaf DPA and 12 to Junior/Senior DPA this season! Approximately 1/3 of Lincoln County active 4-H’ers participate in DPA each year. On average over the past three years, over 56% of Lincoln County participants have placed with their presentations at DPA competition. Thanks to our sponsors and fundraising, the Lincoln County Extension Office is usually able to provide financial support so that 4-H’ers do not have to pay to participate in DPA. DPA preparation is well underway for students to be prepared for competition in February, 2020.
The second 4-H Club currently available in Lincoln County is the Poultry Judging Club which has 15 active participants from 6th to 12th grade. Poultry judging is an event designed to help students understand and apply the standards used in poultry and egg production and marketing. Participants judge both live birds and market poultry, identify anatomy of birds, and evaluate eggs for their quality. Students are given ten minutes to evaluate a specimen against the ideal specified by industry experts and are given two minutes to give a cohesive set of reasons justifying their evaluation. The Poultry Judging program is designed for students to learn critical thinking, decision making, and problem solving skills. Poultry judging clubs typically compete at a county, area, and state level, with potential to travel to the National 4-H Poultry Judging Contest as well. The top members of the senior state winning team are invited to State 4-H Congress. The Lincoln County Poultry Judging Team has placed third at State Contest two years in a row, and will resume meetings in spring of 2020!
Lincoln County 4-H is actively pursuing opportunities to serve our community. 4-H’ers are often volunteers for community meetings and events such as the Cattlemen’s Meetings and the annual Soil and Water Commission Banquet. Lincoln County Extension hopes to expand 4-H clubs in 2020 with the addition of a Horse Club and a Livestock Show Team. Interest meetings for the aforementioned clubs will be held in spring of 2020. The success of 4-H depends on the involvement of community volunteers to run different clubs and interest groups. If you are interested in being a 4-H volunteer and community leader, or if you have a student interested in joining a 4-H club, please reach out to the Lincoln County Extension Office at uge3181@uga.edu or 706-359-3233.
