Sunday, November 16, 2014

A Tribute to 4-H


Ruth and I attended a birthday party for 4-H last night in Wisconsin Dells (We each were 4-H members for 10 years).  More than 500 people from around the state gathered to celebrate 100 years of Wisconsin 4-H.  The festivities also involved inducting 98 people into the newly created 4-H Hall of Fame—volunteer 4-H leaders, county and state-based 4-H professionals, business people who support 4-H, and early founders of the organization.

Four-H, is an out-of-school educational program and part of University of Wisconsin-Extension, which is in every county in the state.  Four-H has enrolled thousands of rural and urban kids over these 100 years.

We organized a 4-H club in my home community in 1945, only a few months after the end of World War II.  We named it Chain O’ Lake, after the name of our one-room country school.  All of the members of our new club were also students at the school.

I enrolled in the dairy and forestry projects.  In the forestry project, I received 50 little pine seedlings, which I grew out in a nursery I constructed back of our chicken house.  Two years later, I set the trees out along the edge of our oak woodlot. 

Today, I often drive by to see how these trees are doing.   They are now nearly 70 years old, standing straight and growing taller every year.  It was the 4-H forestry project that helped develop my life-long interest in the environment—and my love for trees.  Today, these many years later, I run a tree farm, and continue to plant trees every year, sometimes only a dozen or so, some years several thousand.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Happy Birthday Wisconsin 4-H

December 3, 7:00 p.m.  Live on Milwaukee Public TV.  A Farm Winter.

December 7, 1:00-2:15 and 2:30-3:15 Kalahari Resort, Wisconsin Dells (Two sessions) Wis Farm Bureau Meeting. Writing From Your Life for Children and Grandchildren.

December 8, 8:00 p. m.  Live on Twin Cities Public TV.  A Farm Winter.

December 13, 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.  Barnes and Noble, La Crosse.  Book Signing.

January 28, 2015 7:00 p.m. Stoughton Opera House.  A Farm Winter.

Purchase Jerry’s DVDS and his Books from the Patterson Memorial Library in Wild Rose, Wisconsin (a fund raiser for them): Patterson Memorial Library


The library now has available both of Jerry’s DVDs, Emmy Winner, A Farm Winter with Jerry Apps and Jerry Apps A Farm Story.
Also available are several of Jerry’s book including The Quiet Season (on which the DVD A Farm Winter is based), as well as Rural Wit and Wisdom and Old Farm, (which are related to the DVD Jerry Apps a Farm Story). Also available is Jerry’s new novel, The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County.
Contact the library for prices and special package deals.
Patterson Memorial Library
50 Division St.
Wild Rose, WI 54984
barnard@wildroselibrary.org
www.wildroselibrary.org
920-622-3835







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