4-H Roots Run Deep

Clockwise from above: Karlie with her calf, Kar Kar; Keagen shows a sheep; Third from the left is Michelle (then Berge) from her earlier 4-H years; Last year Michelle, her husband (Ryan), and Keagen, Karter, and Karlie received the Winneshiek County 4-H Volunteer Award; Karter shows a chicken. (Einck photos.)

4-H roots run deep in the Berge-Einck family from Northeast Iowa. Grandmas Beth Einck and Kristi Berge; mom Michelle Einck; and kids Keagen, Karter, and Karlie Einck all embrace (and embody) the tenets of this family-centered learning program.

BY SARA FRIEDL-PUTNAM

“C’mon now – you’ve got four legs for a reason,” Keagen Einck, the 16-year-old co-president of the

Glenwood 4-H club, implores as he tries to lead one of his five newly acquired sheep out of a small barn for a walk on a glorious spring evening.

But this as-yet-unnamed sheep is having none of it. The cajoling, in fact, does little to move the headstrong animal, who holds her ground (much to Keagen’s chagrin) until his grinning younger brother, Karter, 14, comes to the rescue and begins pushing the sheep from the rear as Keagan gently pulls from the front. Gradually the animal moves forward, and soon she has joined another sheep led by Karter, and a third led by the brothers’ little sister, Karlie, 10, on what might charitably be called a jaunt. They slowly creep through the lush green grass that surrounds a small lake on the Luzum family farm off Valdres Road in Decorah. “Keagen, Karter, and Karlie are incredible,” says Lori Luzum, the farm’s owner, watching from afar. “They come out to help with chores and to walk the animals in the early morning and the evening, almost every single day.”

Photo by Sara Friedl-Putnam

Thus begins three months of training and caretaking for the livestock – in all, seven sheep, two goats, and several chickens – that these three 4-H siblings will show at the 2018 Winneshiek County Fair July 10-14 in Decorah. The livestock competition is inarguably one of the best-known aspects of the 4-H program among the general public. This year Karter will show chickens, including his beloved Gertie – “I like them the most because, yeah, they can

Keagan at the 2016 Winneshiek Co. Fair, after showing sheep with a fellow 4-Her and winning three awards. At right: Karter grooms a sheep to get ready for showing. (Einck photos.)

sometimes be boring but more often they’re really fun,” he says – as well as three dogs – Snoopy, Pugsly, and Lucy – that he trained in 4-H courses taught by his grandmother, Beth Einck. Karlie will work with two goats, Oliver and Max, as well as her sheep, Ruby. Keagan, for his part, will stick with sheep – this spring and summer he will care for five.

Though he’s got to be prompted by his proud mom to share the details, Keagan – an avid race car driver who can be seen many Saturday nights doing laps around the Upper Iowa Speedway – has done quite well showing sheep at the fair. In 2016, his first year, he showed three sheep with a fellow 4-Her and ended up sweeping the champion heavyweight, reserve market, and showmanship divisions. Last year he took home two showmanship awards, one for sheep and one for chickens. “You pick your best animal and show it all day, and are judged on how you show and not how the animal necessarily acts,” Keagen explains of the showmanship award. “The judges are always watching how you are interacting with your animal and ask all sorts of questions. No matter what we present, the first question we’re always asked is what our goal was….learning guides the entire 4-H program.”

But, as Angie Sperfslage, 4-H Winneshiek County Youth Coordinator, points out, there’s much more to 4-H than raising and training livestock. “I hope our youth will graduate 4-H with a greater perspective on life, leadership skills, and a sense of belonging to their communities,” she says. “4-H offers something for everyone – we are not only a program for country kids. We serve all youth with wide-ranging interests, including Legos, leadership, arts, livestock, cooking, public speaking, camping, and anything STEM-related.” Or,

Winneshiek County 4-h Project Areas

There are more than 45 different project areas for 4-H members to explore in the areas of animals; creative arts; agriculture and natural resources; family and consumer sciences; personal development; and science, engineering, and technology.

For more information

Any interested youth in grades K - 12 can become a 4-H member. (Students in grades K-3 are called Clover Kids; they are involved in many of the same activities.) Adults are also an invaluable part of the program – more than 45 club leaders and countless volunteers help with workshops, livestock weigh-ins, and the county fair. For more information, visit www.extension.iastate.edu/winneshiek/4h.

as Karlie says simply, “You get to make a lot of new friends and do a lot of cool new things in 4-H.”

Michelle agrees. “Many people think 4-H is all about agriculture, and it can be – but it definitely does not have to be,” she says. “We do community-service projects, like sending military mail and collecting Toys for Tots. We do all sorts of other, non-animal, projects, like, for example, Karlie has sewn a skirt with the help of folks at the Red Roxy Quilt store in Decorah; Keagen has taken photographs; and Karter has created duct-tape key chains and shown others how to make them too. We have regular meetings where we learn about things like mounting photos and practicing

first aid. … 4-H teaches kids so much. It teaches them respect. It teaches them how to make friends. It teaches them importance of giving back to the community.”

Indeed, there’s no doubt love of 4-H runs deep in the Einck family – last year Michelle, her husband (Ryan), and Keagen, Karter, and Karlie received the Winneshiek County 4-H Volunteer Award in recognition of their hard work in support of the local 4-H program, which operates under the auspices of Iowa State University Extension and Outreach. While Ryan wasn’t involved in 4-H as a youth, Michelle has been a member of the local 4-H community for decades – as a teen in the late 1980s, she showed rabbits through the Glenwood Future Homemakers, which her mother, Kristi Berge, who now co-leads the Glenwood 4Hers with Michelle, then led. (At that time, boys took part in the Glenwood Junior Farmers.)

Michelle doing a demonstration when she was in 4-H. (Einck photos.)

Head. Heart. Hands. Health.

The Glenwood 4-H Club raising money for a family in need. (Einck photo.)

the 24-member 4-H county council. They have both also traveled to Washington, D.C., as part of the youth citizenship program.

“4-H is very much a family affair,” says Sperfslage. “It’s volunteerled, with all hands on deck, so that children can achieve as many goals as possible.” That’s been the program’s mission since it was founded in 1902, by A. B. Graham, a country schoolmaster in Clark County, Ohio. By 1910, J. Jessie Field Shambaugh had developed the ubiquitous clover pin that sports an “H” on each leaf, and by 1912, the youth clubs had been coined “4-H clubs.” (The meaning of each of those “H”s”? Head, heart, hands, and health.)

Today, 4-H is the largest youth educational program in the world, with over 6 million members in the United States alone. According to Sperfslage, Winneshiek County 4-H is believed to have started in 1922 with 26 boys and 24 girls. “There are now 14 clubs with 277 4-H members in grades 4-12 in Winneshiek County,” she says. “There are also 86 Clover Kid members, in grades K-3, who participate with our traditional clubs and after-school programs.”

Of course, the sought-after goal of 4-H – as Michelle, Keagan, Karter, and Karlie all agree upon – is to advance to the state competition or to earn that blue ribbon. “When Keagen’s photo made it state, that’s when we thought it was possible for both of us too,” says Karter, who has, indeed, now made it to state as well.

Keagen, for his part, knows that his influence goes beyond his younger siblings – and therein lies the larger goal of 4-H. “I am always aware that, as one of the older 4-Hers, I am setting an example for younger kids for what they can do and achieve in the program, and how they will one day need to step up,” he says. “I think that’s important, and that is a big part of what I will take with me and hope to pass on to the next 4-H leaders as well.”

Sara Friedl-Putnam encourages Winneshiek County Fair-goers to venture beyond the midway and grandstand this July and tour the livestock buildings to see the culmination of months of hard work by local 4-H youth who have raised and trained beef, dairy cattle, dairy goats, meat goats, poultry, rabbits, sheep, swine, and horses.