YOUTH SERVED AT THE CLARK CO. FAIR
Friday, August 7th, 2009 -- 11:27 AM
The Fair is about a lot of stuff: food, animals, exhibits? rides.But the driving force behind the Fair is the youth. The 4-H and FFA youth who make the Fair what it is.
It?s easy to get cynical about youth these days, but walking around the exhibition buildings or the animal barns, you start to feel a little more optimistic.
I did that this morning.
"What I like is, for every youth you see doing these things, there's a set of parents, or a parent, behind them," said Jean Taylor of Thorp, who was judging leather crafts.
Just next door, Maria Bendixen of the Clark County UW-Extension Office was overseeing the dairy show.
"We've had some really nice Hosteins in here, and red and whites, milking shorthorns and Ayreshires and Jerseys," she said.
Bendixen says the Fair is a great learning experience.
"They definitely learn responsibility," she says, "they have to learn how their calf is fed, they have to go over and feed it. And they have to train it. It takes a lot of work to get a calf to walk around the ring like we're seeing today."
"These kids work really hard at it."
Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.