By Connie Swaim

As we celebrate National 4-H Week, I reflected on what I learned in 10 years as a 4-H member. I learned to color inside the lines and that choosing the right colors was important. This was from my first year in Wildlife.

(Remember, this was the early 1970s, and what I did in 4-H may be very different than what students are doing now.)

I had to color animals and birds and make a poster out of them. It was judged on how well you colored the animals and how they were displayed. I will never forget the goldfinch. For one thing, I had always called the goldfinch a wild canary. My 4-H project taught me its proper name.

I learned the male and female were much different in coloration, and that females of many species were often more subdued in coloring to help them camouflage better. And I learned thistles were purple; the goldfinch was sitting on a thistle and you had to color both of them.

Whenever I think of 4-H I think of poster board and glue. I remember frustration and crying, as well, I think from both me and my mom. I imagine parents everywhere dreaded the week leading up the fair when everyone suddenly realized they had not done enough to prepare projects.

Also in Wildlife I learned how to make plaster casts of animal tracks. Now this was fun; I loved making the plaster casts. I would carry the supplies with me and hunt along creek beds for usable tracks. Many tracks were easy, such as raccoon, deer, and rabbit. But I needed a lot more than that to finish the project.

I remember needing two more tracks, so I went to my grandparents’ pond and saw a killdeer land in the mud. As soon as it flew away, I made a cast. I couldn’t find any other birds I could identify by their tracks, and I had all the easy animals. I decided to take a plaster cast of a mallard duck, one of many that lived on the pond.

Darned if that judge didn’t leave me a note saying he or she thought my cast of the duck came from a domesticated duck and not a wild duck. I remember being absolutely floored that somehow, this person knew that. I did not get a blue ribbon.

However, I did learn how to make plaster casts fairly quickly. I used that skill a few years later when I landed a job as a naturalist’s assistant at a state park. I had to lead some of the hikes for park visitors – I did one on making plaster casts, and the visitors could take home their own casts of raccoon and deer tracks that we would make during the hikes.

I learned about constructive criticism as I watched a food judging and listened to the judge describe my chocolate chip cookies. There wasn’t enough salt and I hadn’t mixed the batter well enough. It taught me that paying attention to details was important (a lesson my mom kept trying to teach me, but I was stubborn).

By the time I got to higher levels in cooking, I was winning blue and purple ribbons. I still remember the pride I felt when my yeast rolls were chosen to go to the state fair. I had worked hard on those rolls all summer, learning to knead the dough properly and forming rolls that would all be the same size.

My years in 4-H taught me there were winners and losers. If you didn’t follow the directions correctly, you would be a loser, but you could also do everything just right and learn someone else had still done a better job. While I didn’t like losing, it never scared me for life or made me feel as if I shouldn’t try.

When I was in 4-H, I think we had a lot more white and red ribbons than there are today. I was asked to judge a 4-H category several years ago and was told I should give out more blue ribbons than red, and white should only be if the student didn’t follow the directions. I was told children would be disappointed if they didn’t get a blue ribbon.

I am here to say I got more red ribbons than blue ribbons and I think I turned out all right. I love my memories of 4-H. I loved the fair. I loved the anticipation of going into the community building and walking down the aisles looking for my entries to see what color ribbon I received.

Maybe I’ll dust off some Plaster of Paris and take a creek hike as a commemoration of National 4-H Week.