Brianna Walker

I didn’t grow up doing 4-H or FFA. I could match the clover leaf to 4-H and the blue jackets to FFA, and I knew they showed animals at fair — but that was about the extent of my knowledge. Everyone says pick one thing and do it well, and we picked watermelons. No 4-H, no fair — just watermelons.

That changed when I had kids. Since we have a close friend who is an avid supporter of 4-H and always promoting its benefits, I decided maybe it was time we learned more about it.

Our first venture into that unknown world was a goat club. But when it came time for fair, we were still hot and heavy into harvest; there was no way we could take a week off to show a goat. Which makes the process of learning to show an animal kind of pointless.

Then, as 4-H was starting to seem like a fail, our son discovered 4-H includes Lego robotics. We created a new club that focuses primarily on STEM. This worked well; he could now show his projects in the fair, and he could hardly wait for the next meeting.

My littlest son, always wanting to emulate his big brother, was delighted when he became old enough to join as a cloverbud. Not having grown up in the program, I am often surprised how much responsibility the kids have over their projects and the club in general — even cleaning up the room at the end of a meeting.

This year, I have been especially thankful for 4-H encouraging kids to manage their own projects. With summer blowing past, and my husband and I trying to cram 40 hours of work into each work day, we barely have time to sleep. Which means if we had to help with fair projects, the kids would turn in hay bales or melons.

Instead, my oldest son decided to build a rocket launcher. We dropped him off at the local irrigation store and the lady there helped him get what he wanted — our contribution was just paying the bill when we picked him up.

Over the next few weeks, each time he had a few extra minutes, he was measuring, cutting, and redesigning his project. Soon he had a created a pneumatic device that would launch rockets.

I was impressed, but my son wasn’t satisfied. What if he wanted to launch something besides rockets? What if he wanted to launch “bottle rockets”? I just shrugged. It was his project; he could do whatever he wanted. Soon he had built a dual launcher: one side for rockets (or bottles) and the other side for tennis balls.

Again, I was impressed, but he wasn’t satisfied. Sometimes the rockets or balls launched high, others barely out of reach — he needed an air gauge. That pacified him for a few days.

But he felt he could minimize the reload time if the air compressor hose didn’t have to be reattached before each launch — for which he installed a pressure regulator. Now the air compressor could remain hooked up, and it only took seconds to refill the launcher for the next round.

What began as a pneumatic rocket launcher had soon morphed into a device that not only launched rockets, but tennis balls, Gatorade bottles — and water balloons. We spent several hours one hot afternoon launching water balloons, and then my 6-year-old decided to skip the time it took to fill the balloon, and he just put the garden hose inside the launcher itself. It was a blast. We spent hours just launching water. Some of the most fun I’ve had playing with a kid toy in a long time.

It’s been a fun project to watch materialize, one that wouldn’t have happened without the self-directing nature of 4-H. I’m so thankful I had someone pushing me to enroll my kids. 4-H is much more than just showing animals in the fair. It seems to increase the level of independence and confidence in the kids participating.

To find youth activities that are educational, character-building, fun and focused on agriculture, one has to wonder why I didn’t sign the kids up sooner? It’s not rocket science — but then again, maybe it is.