By Sara Drake

Extension Agent, 4-H Youth Development

Rowan County 4-H’ers took part in the 2015 North Carolina 4-H Congress. Held July 18-21, the event brought 518 young people and their adult leaders to Raleigh for activities including presentations on a variety of subjects, leadership and citizenship training, service opportunities, officer elections and more.

Nathan Gobble, Sam Oster and Holly Wallace participated in the state presentation contests designed to test 4-H’ers’ knowledge of a variety of subjects.

Nathan shared his science fair project on electricity in the 9- to 10-year-old Electric category. Sam told about the health benefits of peanuts and also helped educate about the dangers that exist to those with a peanut allergy in the 11- to 13-year-old Peanut Foods category.

Holly competed in the 14-18 Open Class category with her presentation on Tokyo.

Sam won gold. Nathan earned silver. All presenters at state presentations had to qualify at the county level to present at the district competition. Gold winners in the 9- to 10-year-old categories and gold and silver winners in the 11- to 13- and 14- to 18-year-old categories were eligible to compete at the state competition.

The presentation and public speaking state contests are held on the first day of 4-H Congress.  4-H members who are 13-18 years old can register to attend the remaining sessions. Attending 4-H Congress were Anthony Blandino and Holly Wallace.

4-H Congress provides an opportunity for 4-H’ers across the state to come together to meet each other and make new friends, increase their knowledge of current issues through educational experiences, and help to provide an opportunity to develop and exercise leadership skills.

Holly said that while at 4-H Congress, she “learned about knowing yourself, values, gratitude and how important each thing is to being a good leader. I learned about listening to others; you can’t be a good leader if you don’t listen, and know your own people’s strengths and weaknesses.”

Anthony is excited to attend 4-H Congress next year to build on what he learned this year. He learned about “teamwork, leadership and listening skills. I also made new friends and met up with old friends.”

The 4-H program is the youth education program of North Carolina Cooperative Extension, based at North Carolina State and North Carolina A&T State universities. More than 232,000 young people between the ages of 5 and 19 participate in North Carolina 4-H activities each year with the help of 20,563 adult and youth volunteers.

For more information regarding 4-H in Rowan County, contact Sara Drake at sara_drake@ncsu.edu or at 704-216-8970.