My 4-H Story--2003--Ninth Year in 4-H

My 4-H Story

Written 2003

Age: 15

Year in 4-H: 9

     4-H isn't just a way of thinking it is a way of life for me.  This has been a very busy year and I don't know where to start.  I guess I'll just start at the beginning.  

     Hi.  My name is John Trammell.  I am fifteen years old and have been in 4-H since I was in first grade.  I have learned many things through my 4-H experiences and met many interesting people as well.

     My dad, Steven, works at St. Bernardine's Medical Center as a clinical laboratory scientists.  He was in 4-H when he was a kid and that is how I came into 4-H.  He is the one that has taught me about photography.  Photography was his biggest project and now it is my biggest project.  Someday I would like to be a professional photographer.  My mom, Rozie, is a sixth grade teacher at Clement Middle School and my sister, Ashley, is a student there.  Ashley is also in 4-H.  She has been in it since she was in Kindergarten.  

     I don't have many pets left.  I have an eighteen-year-old cat named Buster.  He is very thin and all he does is eat, sleep, drink water and poops.  He is so worn out that he doesn't play anymore.  I sure miss that mischievous character he used to be.  I have some tropical fish but that is it.  

This year started with new dreams.  Last year, in June 2002, I went to California Focus for the first time.  When I got back I started to work on the plan of action our group had written up.  I had such a great experience at California Focus that I went back again this year in June 2003.  The plan of action was to document and photograph Veteran Memorials in San Bernardino County.  We all thought it wouldn't be that hard, but we were surprised at the challenges that came up.  For example:  I would ask people if they knew about any memorials in their city.  Most of the people I asked had no idea about any memorials.  I wrote letters to Chamber of Commerce's and to American Legion's in San Bernardino County and I got only one back with a response.  Also, some of the cities and towns are a long distance from where I live which meant a long travel time to go exploring the areas.  However, I was successful in locating and photographing a number of memorials.  What struck me as funny was when we went to the Marine base in 29 Palms, we asked the people on the base about memorials and they had no clue.  I found out later that there is a collection of memorials right on the base itself.  I found that out by casual conversation of the local non-military residents.  And to top things off, my camera suddenly had a problem.  The seal around the film encasement deteriorated and ruined the film that I used out in 29 Palms.  I had to get my camera repaired and then made another trip back to 29 Palms to re-shoot the memorials.  I certainly learned a lot form this plan of action.  It was a lot of hard work, but I also enjoyed using my photography skills for this project.  I had such a great time that now I have set my sights on Washington Focus.  I am looking forward to a brand new learning experience and expanding my knowledge about citizenship.

     To add to this already challenging year, a group of people from the Grand Terrace 4-H Club decided that it was too far to travel to Highgrove for the club meetings and events that they wanted to start a new club.  So East Valley 4-H Club was formed.  That meant a lot of work trying to get everything settled and going.  My mom was able to use her classroom for our meetings, which is a central point for everyone.  It is in Redlands so the people from Yucaipa don't have to travel too far and the people from Highland don't have to travel too far either.  Our new club has had a fun but busy year.  

     This year again, I was the teen leader for the photography project.  We had some new members join the project and we also had some "old timers" that have been in the project a long time.  This presents interesting challenges because my leader doesn't have time to have several project meetings a month.  So we brain stormed ideas that would be new for the ones that are more advanced but wouldn't be too difficult for the new members.  We did a couple of combination meetings because several of the members are in the wildlife project as well.  The combined meetings were held at an Exotic Animal Rescue Haven in Phelan and at the Living Desert in Palm Desert.  The Living Desert meetings was really fun because it was a sleepover.  We got to see the animals at night when they are most active.  The next day, we were up early enough to get good photos of the animals in action because it was still quite cool.  Of course I am one of the members that is in the wildlife project.  What was really neat was finding a baby scorpion at night and using the black light to see it fluoresce.  I didn't know that you could find scorpions using a black light.  Another group found a gopher snake.  This was a really neat trip that our wildlife project put together.  I hope we get to do more fun stuff like this next year.

     Community service is big with our club.  We have a member that is actually a junior leader in that project and she keeps us busy.  We started off by collecting all those pennies that no one knows what to do with.  We then took them to the Ronald McDonald House.  This project was called Pennies from the Heart.  We donated 4,000 pennies or $40.00 worth.  I never knew pennies could be so heavy.  When we got there, they had two armed guards with an armored truck there.  They had many bags of pennies already in the truck.  We've already started collecting the pennies for next year.  If you don't know waht to do with all those pennies that are laying around your house, bring them to a county meeting and East Valley 4-H Club will gladly take them off of your hands.  

But the work didn't stop there.  We made cards for the kids that are in the hospital there and we also collected the pop-top pull-tabs.  This year we were able to give 163,633 to Ronald McDonald House.  We made food baskets for the needy and we also collected used clothing that was in good condition for them as well.  We baked cookies and delivered them to a convalescent hospital while we sang Christmas songs for them.  Collecting newspapers for the animal shelter has been one of the easiest things to do since we get newspapers delivered to our house all the time.  At least the ones that have been read are being put to good use.  One of the more fun things we did was to make tray buddies for the Loma Linda Children's Hospital.  We made little turkeys out of small clay pots and foam pieces.  They turned out really cute.  We made about 75 of them.  

     My dream of participating in the Washington Focus group is coming true.  In September of 2002, a group of 4-H members met and we decided on which tour we would do.  We decided to do the Global Tour, which included a trip to New York and to Philadelphia.  But it is going to cost a lot of money.  So we are doing fundraising to help us get there.  The first fundraiser we did was a "Bail the people out of Jail" idea.  At Achievement Night we built a jail and people were put into jail for any little thing that they did wrong.  Then family members or others would have to pay to get them out.  What was really funny is when people came up to us and paid us to put someone into jail.  Of course then someone had to bail them out.  We had one person who paid us $20.00 to put another person in jail.  The Washington Focus group were the sheriffs and the jailers.  We made about $147.00 dollars.  Some of the other fundraisers we are doing are a turn around trip to State Line.  This is only for adults, but all the money made will go toward the Washington Focus trip.  We area also putting together a really nice County 4-H cookbook.  If people buy only one book, we would be able to sell them quickly and put the funds toward our trip.  We are also going to be doing several other things to help raise money for the trip, but they are in the planning stages right now.  I hope that we get the support we need to take this trip from a dream to a reality.

     One of the neat trips the Washington Focus group did in December was go to the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley.  Since it was Christmas time, the place was decorated with so many different trees.  These were the trees that were in the White House while President Reagan was in office.  I never knew that they decorated that many trees for the White House.  We also got to see replicas of the first atomic bombs.  There was a WWII exhibit there.  It was interesting to see the uniforms and equipment the soldiers had back then.  Of course, there was a lot of things on display from the Reagan's home as well.  Mrs. Reagan had many beautiful dresses and she also had a lot of pretty china and silver ware.  They also had the many gifts they got when they were in the White House on display.  They were very expensive gifts.  But the most interesting thing was the section of the Berlin Wall that was outside.  I had no idea what the Berlin Wall was until I saw it and ready about it.  It is amazing that people would build a wall to divide a city into two sections.  There were many sad stories that went with the wall.  I am glad that the wall was finally torn down.

     One of the new things that I have been involved with is the Sectional Teen Council.  It all started when I went to TIC in 2002.  I has such a great time that I went again in 2003.  Since my mom goes to sectional meetings, I go with her and that is how I got involved.  I have met a lot of other teens from other counties and many of them are really great kids.  This year I was elected as the Treasurer for the Teen Council.  Tony Burkhart is the leader and keeps us in line.  We also get to do fun things.  After the last meeting we went to Boomers in Montclair and we had a lot of fun riding the go-carts and playing miniature golf.  We also worked the food booth for Sectional Field Day.  We are now planning TIC for 2004.  I hope there will be a lot of teens that come because it is such a fun event.  I encourage everyone that can to come.

     This has been such a busy year with citizenship and leadership that I didn't have much time to do a demonstration.  What I did do was an educational display on the proper way to display a flag for County Field Day.  To my surprise, I was a County Winner and I decided that I would set it up for Sectional Field Day.  At sectional I got a blue seal.  Next year I will try this again.

     One of the special things that happened this year was when my mom went to State Presentation Day at Davis to be a judge.  She also signed me up to be a room monitor and MC.  I had never done this before so it was a first for me.  I had to make sure that the right members were in the right room.  I also got to introduce the members to the audience.  I closed the door and opened the door.  It wasn't always easy to pronounce the county names and the members' names.  One of the things that I will work on for next year is practicing the names.  For me, that was the hardest part about being a room monitor.  Other than that, I had a great time.  I am looking forward to doing this again next year.

This years California Focus group chose to do a different plan of action that actually came from last years plan of action.  As we went around to photograph the memorials, we notices that many of the flags were torn and faded.  We knew that this wasn't right.  We also found that many people don't know how to properly display the American Flag.  The big question was what do you do with the worn out flags?  So our plan of action is to educate the people on how to properly display the flag and how to properly retire a flag that is worn out.  It is going to be a lot of work again, but it will be well worth the effort.  I look forward to learning how to properly retire the flags and I look forward to working with the other members of this years California Focus group. 

 Taking photos is my favorite thing to do.  It has been such a busy year it was hard for me to go out on many photo shoots.  But along the way I did get to do some special trips.  One of the trips was early in the morning to do sunrise photos of the windmills out by Palm Springs.  It was really great to be able to see the sun come up and be able to use my new lens and filters.  Some of the best photos though were taken without filters.  There isn't a large time frame for taking the special shots and you never realize how fast the sun comes up until you try to get that special photo.  I entered one of my photos in the California Snap Shots contest and I got first place again.  You can see the photo on the California website.  I was surprised that I did so well.

     Another chance to take interesting photos was when we had all of those spring rains.  There were so many beautiful clouds around that I couldn't resist taking the time to go and do a photo shoot.  Clouds are really tricky because of the lighting.  Plus they are alway son the move and they keep changing.  I was also out in the late afternoon just before sunset so it was getting dark.  The wind was also blowing and so the clouds moved pretty fast.  But I did get some really pretty shots from them.

     Animal shots can be really tricky, especially if they are bugs that are always moving like bees.  We were at Kimberly Crest, a favorite place of mine, shooting the spring flowers when I noticed that the bees were out.  The bees moved very quickly from flower to flower and they move in and out of the flower as well.  It is hard to get good focus on them and the flower.  But somehow I managed to get a couple of photos out of the shoot.

     This year I entered in the San Gabriel Fair.  This is the first time I entered this fair.  I didn't realize that LA County 4-H puts this fair on.  I encouraged our photo project members and anyone else in our club to enter this fair.  It was a lot of fun.  Tow of my photos did very well and got tow Best of Show trophies.  That was really exciting.  I hope that next year I will be able to do more of my own photo shoots so that I can learn to use the 300mm zoom lens better and the filters too.

 As a new club we have done a lot of things.   The leaders that have helped put this club together have worked very hard so that the members can be successful in 4-H.  One of the things that this club did this year was to participate in the Share the Fun Skit for County Field Day.  We had several brain storming ideas and we finally came up with the theme "4-H is Right for you." We based it on the game show called "The Rice is Right."  We had a lot of fun working together and we got to know each other better by working on this skit.  We got a blue seal for our skit at County Field Day.

     This has truly been a very busy year for me.  It seems like every time I turn around I am doing something in 4-H.  And that is a good thing.  Through my Leadership project and my Citizenship project I have learned many new things and I have met many great people.  4-H has truly become a way of life and a way of thinking of thinking for me.  I am looking forward to the next year.  I have been elected as club president, I am the Sectional Teen Council Treasurer, and I am getting ready to go to Washington Focus.  For the first time I have turned in a State Record book and I have done a flag retirement ceremony.  My new 4-H year has started off at a running pace and I can't wait to see what the rest of the year brings for me.