Great Things Happening in Adams County 4-H, FFA
On February 16th the Dance class was seen ‘Hip Hopping’ their way across the dance floor in a special class. Multiple age groups showed up for the event and spent the morning learning different moves to hip hop music while their parents watched. Dance Class is held most every Friday morning for ages 3 to 18. Classes have moved from the American Legion Hall to Council Elementary School. Classes are $10 per kid for drop ins, and $28 for a month. This event is a partnership with 4-H, The University of Idaho’s Adams County Extension, and Mountain Dance Unlimited, LLC.
The Adams County Horse 4-H Club has been busy! The last couple weeks, the club has gone over Horse colors and horse breeds in their office lessons. The club sent 3 members, Rylee Hatfield, Cheyenne McDonald, and Cheyanne Stevenson to Idaho’s Southern District II 4-H Horse Bowl event in Fruitland on March 2nd. This was the first time that Adams County has sent a team to this event. The Senior team placed 4th place winning metals.
Both teams were then treated to pizza dinner and a visit to the Ontario movie theater to watch Migration.
The horse 4-H club now will prepare for their next event, a field trip to The Idaho Horse Expo on April 6th in Nampa. The club will watch the mustangs they saw at the BLM Corrals be put through a class, along with watching events and trainers of all types of disciplines in the show arena. Horse club open enrollment is still open until April 15th, so be sure to join before then!
Business meetings are held every Monday at 4:30 at the Extension Office meeting room in Council. All youth ages 6-18 in Adams County are welcome to join! Riding meetings will be scheduled once the weather turns warmer.
The Adams County Photography Club’s open enrollment is open as well until April 15th. Their business meetings are held every Tuesday at 4:30 at the Extension Office meeting room in Council. All youth ages 6-18 in Adams County are welcome to join! You DO NOT need a fancy camera and can use a cellphone. The club is still working on finding club digital cameras and have applied to a few sponsors and grants with this goal in mind.
The Photography club lessons have covered the Exposure triangle, learning what Exposure, ISO, and Aperture is and how to properly use those settings on their cameras. Plans for field trips for the club are in the works including a trip to the Idaho Botanical Gardens in Boise and the Boise Zoo. The club elected Cheyanne Stevenson as President, Cheyenne McDonald as Vice President/Reporter, Ashlyn Cholin as secretary and Arizona Roland as Historian.
The Extension Office and 4-H program are still looking for volunteer leaders for clubs! Especially for gardening and dogs. The office has a great opportunity in grants and sponsorships for the Gardening club to apply for. Master Gardener class is still in the planning for this spring, and the office will continue to pass on updates as they become available.
Discussion on holding a hoop house class has come up for those wanting to build the hoop designed green houses. More information will be released on this as well. It’s starting to look like spring is going to become busy!
You do not need to be a professional to volunteer, just be interested in the subject of the club you want to lead! The Extension Office has a lot of great resources to help you lead a successful fun club for the Youth. Contact the office for a volunteer application.
The Small Animal and Goats/Poultry 4-H Club will meet next on Tuesday March 12th at 6:00 p.m. held at Denali Toombs home. The next lessons will cover what can make your animals sick and how to keep them healthy. The club will continue to build on their ongoing farm project for the Fair Exhibit table. This club has open enrollment till April 15th as well.
The Large animal 4-H Club will have a meet and greet meeting on March 14th at 4:30 at the Extension Office meeting room. Tyanne Roland spent the day February 28th in Donnelly, Idaho teaching a Beef education class to the school. Plans are to host another class for New Meadows and Council schools as well.
National FFA week was held February 19th to February 23rd. Youth dressed up in Denim on Tuesday, Sported American Day on Wednesday, and wore the traditional blue and gold on Thursday. The Council FFA chapter hosted a morning breakfast on Thursday February 22nd. The last alumni FFA meeting was held February 27th 6:30 p.m. at the Council School Ag shop.
4-H Beef Weigh-in was held February 24th at the Adams County Fairgrounds seeing over 8 projects come in to start their 2024 Fair. The next weigh-ins scheduled are Saturday, April 13th for swine at 10:00 a.m. and Saturday May 4th for sheep and goats. Sheep must be shaved before weighing in. Both will start at 9:00 a.m. at the Adams County Fairgrounds in Council. Please do not forget to turn in your animals bill of sales and be signed up on ZSuites.
The Adams County Fairboard met that morning as well and elected new board members. Caleb Shumway will be the President, Tara Dahl as Secretary, and Treasury went to Jennifer Rininger. Plans for the show barn, animal barns, and horse arena were discussed, such as more electrical access and making the show arena entrance bigger. The horse arena and show arena will see sand being added this year thanks to a donation. The board discussed looking into a disc to work the arena ground. The Fairboard also had rock laid for a road to help the flow of trailers unloading livestock to the barns and weigh machine smoother and easier on all parties. A long term plan has been started on replacing barns in the future for livestock and horses. A fence was discussed being placed around the drainage and new grass area behind the exhibit hall where the campers will be parked for camping at Fair. Jennifer brought up designing a way to bring shade to the horse arena and will research it for the next meeting. A bulletin board was approved to be built at the arena to post signs and arena rules. Vendors were discussed briefly on placement, and it was agreed that in order to prevent the 4-H/FFA from losing any income, no food vendors will be invited to the fair this year.
