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By Matt Reese
With summer here it is time for Ohio’s youth to shine through the many opportunities afforded to them through 4-H. The meetings, projects, camps, leadership roles, and other activities through 4-H can help set the stage for a bright future for young people.
As I get older and see more young people grow up involved with 4-H (and not in 4-H), it becomes easier to see the difference that the program can make in their lives. That difference shows up in maturity, work ethic, respect for others, leadership, and many other positive qualities that can be hard to quantify, but extremely valuable. As the home state of 4-H, the program has certainly instilled those qualities in generations of Ohioans.
Fair season kicked off this month and it is always exciting to see 4-H exhibitors rise to the occasion when competing at the county and state levels in a wide array of projects. At OCJ/Ohio Ag Net, we truly love highlighting these opportunities, and providing them.
Earlier this week I enjoyed a fun way to kick off the 2018 fair season when I had the opportunity to visit the Pickaway County Fair with the Wild About Animals 4-H Club from Fairfield County. We had a chance to talk with Dale Minyo (who was doing a remote at the fair that day) and then we talked about composition of photos. We looked through some photos from past OCJs and discussed what was good — and not so good — about them.
After that, groups of the 4-Hers and their parents went to different parts of the fair to try to get some good photos of what was happening that day. Each group then emailed me their favorite photos. The 4-Hers and their parents got to see a neighboring fair in a unique way as photographers. They had to find good photo subjects, compose an appealing format, and talk to the subjects to get caption information.
I was impressed with their work and I got to take a break while they did my job for me! Dale and I even went and got some ice cream while the group of young, roving photographers spread out across the fairgrounds.
Here is the winner:
Here are some of my other favorites from their work at the Pickaway County Fair.
