4-H marks 100 years with bash at Dixie Classic

When people hear that Jessica Goodard belongs to a 4-H club, they often say something along the lines of "Isn’t that like planting stuff?"

"No," she tells them, "it’s community service."

For Jessica, a home-schooled high school senior from Germanton who belongs to the Trailblazer Teens 4-H Club, 4-H is about projects such as playing music at nursing homes and helping to get shoeboxes filled with goodies for children in other countries at Christmas.

"I’ve always had a passion for community service," she said.

Yesterday, it was about playing guitar at the Dixie Classic Fair in the Forsyth County 4-H Acoustic Band to celebrate 100 years of 4-H clubs in North Carolina. The 4-H Birthday Bash was held at the Clock Tower Stage at the fair.

From the fair’s opening Friday through Sunday night, some 116,000 people had come to the fair to check out the exhibits, ride the rides and eat a funnel cake, or, new this year, fried butter.

That’s about 3,000 more than came through the gates the first three days of the 2008 and about 4,000 less than the five-year average of 120,000, said David Sparks, the fair’s executive director.

"So far, we’re very happy," Sparks said. "It’s been a good fair so far."

When 4-H was established in this state in 1909, said April Bowman, an Forsyth County Cooperative Extension agent who focuses on 4-H programs, it was about going into schools and talking to students about things such as canning tomatoes and how to increase corn yields.

In the years since, it has moved beyond agriculture to public speaking, citizenship programs, nutrition, engineering, math, science and technology. In Forsyth County, 5,300 young people participate in 4-H programs.

For Merritt Artim, a sixth-grader at Pilot Mountain Middle School, the 4-H bash provided a chance to play a piece she composed for piano called "The Last Snowflake of Winter."

For the moment, she wants to grow up and be a chemist, like her father, Michael, and to compose on the side.

"It’s something fun that I do," Merritt said.

After playing with the 4-H Acoustic Band, Nathan Barrick, a home-schooled sophomore who is president of the Forsyth County 4-H Council, talked about H2O (Hope to Others), a project he is working on to help homeless people. He and other 4-H club members are putting together bags that include such items as tuna and bottled water. They are providing them to people for $3 and encouraging them to give them to people who come up and ask for money.

"It’s something to give to homeless people instead of money," Nathan said. "It’s a much better alternative." .

Yesterday, the gates opened for students at 9 a.m. There, along with about 5,000 elementary school students, were such high school groups as the 13 students at Reagan High School who work on the school’s newspaper, The Rooster, and their supervisor, Amber Bryant.

For their story for The Rooster, sophomores Caroline Tart and Taylor Hamby talked to several of the men who ran games on the midway.

"I was surprised that they talked to us so much," Taylor said.

"They spilled their whole life to us," Caroline said.