EDITORIAL: 4-H: a picture of vitality

The very first issue of Ozaukee Press, published on August 18, 1940, featured a front-page photograph of a boy with a Holstein calf. Eighty-five years later, the Aug. 7, 2025 issue of the Press featured a photo of a boy with a Holstein calf. Both pictures were taken at the Ozaukee County Fair. Both boys won prizes for the animals they raised as members of Ozaukee 4-H.

The photos, and similar images that have appeared in the Press over the years in its coverage of the County Fair, are testament to the remarkable endurance of the 4-H.  

The agrarian society 4-H was founded to serve more than a century ago is long gone, but the organization carries on in this technology-driven age as a positive influence on youthful achievement.

When the 1940 picture was published, farming was a vital social and economic force in Ozaukee County, with nearly 1,600 farms operating. When the 2025 photo was published in August, there were fewer than 300 farms in the county.

In 1940, 4-H was all about farming. It had been founded about 60 years earlier to give children of farm families opportunities to take part in hands-on agriculture-related projects and learn about new developments in farming. Almost all 4-Hers lived on farms.

This year, less than 15% of the children who are members of the Ozaukee County 4-H live on farms. Yet, participation is thriving, with a total of 472 members from kindergarten age to high school seniors.

The growing appeal of 4-H is a bracing contrast to the perception that many of today’s children, adolescents and teenagers are consumed with the distractions of smart phones and video games. The kids in 4-H take on projects, set goals and follow through to reach them.

Livestock raising is still a part of 4-H activities—even among some of the city kids—but the organization has broadened its opportunities far beyond the agriculture realm. Programs now include subjects like environmental conservation, food and nutrition and projects designed to put the principles of STEM—science, technology, engineering and math—to use, such as the drone project one Ozaukee 4-H group is working on.

Members are guided in these projects by a corps of mentors. It is a telling measure of the enduring vitality of the 4-H experience that about 150 volunteers serve the Ozaukee 4-H. Many were 4-H members as children. Abi Quinlan, the University of Wisconsin-Extension educator who oversees the Ozaukee 4-H, said members “thrive when they experience relationships with adults. They feel they belong as they learn new skills from an adult mentor and achieve success.”  

The 4-H movement owes its existence to university extensions like UW’s, which took on responsibility for 4-H development when Congress created the Cooperative Extension Service in 1914. More than 100 public universities in the U.S. supervise 4-H programs that now have nearly 6 million participants.

Across the country, 4-H participation has mirrored the Ozaukee County experience. There are more members from suburbs and cities than from farms and rural areas, and the organization’s programs, though still including projects related to agriculture, have expanded to a range of contemporary topics like climate change and global food security.

The evolution of 4-H is a great American story. The America of 125 years ago no longer exists, but the youth organization founded in that quaint time is alive and flourishing because, while it has adapted to a changing society, its core principles have stayed the same. Its purpose is to impart to its young members their own sense of purpose, to set goals and work to achieve them, to be productive members of society. That makes it easy to understand why 21st century suburban parents are as pleased to have a child in 4-H as were farm families of a century ago.

No doubt, 4-H will continue to change with the times, but we at Ozaukee Press hope it will always have a place for the programs for kids with farm animals that have provided subjects for those precious County Fair photos for 85 years.

Without the 4-H, we would not have been able to gift our readers with the July 31, 2025 cover photo of proud brother and sister 4-H members with their well-groomed pig named Bandit getting a friendly pet from a smiling Ozaukee County Sheriff Christy Knowles.  

A County Fair classic, for sure.