Judgment Day for Washington County 4Hers

With projects housed in eight of the 11 buildings, the 4-H program plays a big role in the fair each year.

Kids and teens in the program showed off their projects for judges Tuesday—the day before the fair opened to the public—in areas that ranged from horses to clothing to rocketry to robotics.

The youth organization, based at the University of Minnesota, has plenty of project options for both rural and city dwellers, said parent Tim Warmka, of Oakdale.

“Everyone’s thinking cookies and cows or cupcakes and cows. If you look, there are a lot of city kids,” he said. “We do the dog projects—agility and obedience—aerospace, electrical … It’s whatever you want to make of it and you can do as much or as little as you want to.”

Students’ are judged on their project and how well they present the project to judges, said Ann Church, Washington County 4-H program coordinator.

Kids that participate pick up speaking, presentation and leadership skills in addition to the knowledge and skills they gain by putting their project together, she said.

“It’s all about learning,” Church said. “Would they be doing this stuff if they didn’t have (4-H)? … This just expands their knowledge—a lot of life skills—and they have fun doing it.”

Two Woodbury girls were out at the fairgrounds Tuesday with rather large projects—their horses.

Emily Schneider, 12, was out at the fair for the first time with horse Dreamer, which her family started leasing last year.

Her interaction with horses started when she and her sister asked their rural Woodbury neighbor if they could help clean stalls, just as a way to be around horses.

“I always loved horses but we just never had an opportunity to be around them,” she said.

Their neighbor got them into riding three to four years ago, she said.

Now they ride almost every day.

“It’s just fun,” she said. “It’s fun to be able to control such a huge animal and just be around horses.”

Another rural Woodbury resident, 11-year-old Grace Killeen, is also showing her horse for the first time this year.

She got the horse about six months ago, she said, one of two on her family’s hobby farm. “I’m just so excited to have her.”

Horses can be a lot of work, she said, especially when she has to go out in sub-zero temperatures to take care of them. But it’s worth it.

“It’s just so much fun and they make so much sense and you can do so much with them,” she said. “It’s a fun, good thing to do.”