Kennedy family reaping benefits of 4-H involvement

For many families involved in 4-H, it’s a natural progression to want to pass the benefits received from that involvement onto future gen­erations.

Kelly Kennedy of rural Soldier grew up in 4-H, and he and his wife Kim decided that when they had children of their own, they would grow up in 4-H. Today, the Kenne­dys’ sons — 19-year-old Joseph, 16-year-old John and 13-year-old Joel — are looking forward to passing the 4-H tradition onto their children.

“It’s going to be a great opportu­nity for them,” John said of the in­volvement of the next generation of Kennedys in 4-H.

Kelly, who grew up in the Sol­dier area and had his upbringing in the Pleasant Valley Rustlers 4-H club, back in the days when that club met at the old Banner Grange, stresses that 4-H is “adaptable” for any young people who want to get involved.

“Just thinking about how much it’s adapted for our kids, from age 7 until now — they started out with beginner projects, and now they’re involved in Ambassador activities,” he said. “It’s adaptable for whether you live on a farm or whether you live in town.”

Kim, a native of Smith County, was one of those who lived “in town” and didn’t have a 4-H up­bringing.

“I always wanted to be in 4-H,” she said. “I grew up in a rural community, and a lot of my friends were in 4-H. We didn’t live on a farm, but I was still interested in arts and crafts, cooking and a ton of other things, since we didn’t have any livestock.”

Eventually, Kelly’s aunt and Kim’s mother, who were friends, “got the two of us together,” as Kelly said, and they have been married for about 20 years. And when it came time to get their sons involved in 4-H, the whole family got involved in the Soldier Boost­ers club.

“It all came together when we moved back to Soldier, and Joseph was 7,” Kelly said. “My sister, who was the club leader at Soldier at the time, invited us to a meeting. It just took off from there. At least I al­ways knew that I’d want them in 4-H.”

Joseph took to the 4-H experi­ence naturally.

“I was in bucket calf, gardening, photography, swine and wood­working for a year or two,” said Jo­seph, who at 19 has finished his years in 4-H after being involved for 12 years.

John, who’s in his 11th year of 4-H, was ready to follow in Jo­seph’s footsteps, with a preliminary emphasis on swine projects.

“There were a couple of older kids in our club who had swine projects, and I told Mom and Dad I thought we should raise some pigs,” John said. “I’ve been doing that every year since. I’ve really grown in the project, showing tech­niques and stuff like that.”

John has also been involved in leather work, arts and crafts, foods and nutrition and photography during his 4-H years. But for him, the best part of 4-H is learning leadership skills as a member of the county’s Ambassadors program.

“I’ve helped a lot this year with the Ambassador Day Camp and gone to different conferences with the Ambassadors. There was a conference at Rock Springs last February that I went to for Ambas­sador training,” he said. “I was also a camp counselor this year at Rock Springs 4-H Camp... That was probably the highlight of my year.”

Not to be outdone, Joel, who’s in his seventh year of 4-H involve­ment, got his start with swine, beef and arts and crafts.

“Now I’m in photography. I think I’ve done it six out of my seven years,” Joel said. “Photogra­phy and beef are probably my fa­vorites.”

The Kennedy brothers have also gotten involved in one of the area’s newer 4-H events — shooting sports. Joseph has been improving his skills and working as “kind of a mentor or a junior coach” for some of the younger participants, Kelly said, and John and Joel got in­volved in shotgun events last year.

4-H is “more than just fair pro­jects,” Kelly said, and the Boosters are also involved in the annual Sol­dier Fair.

“Our club puts a lot of emphasis on community service,” he said. “That’s a lot of what 4-H is about — leadership and community service.”

“There is a lot of community service involved,” John added, “and that’s what we’ve been doing ever since we started.”

What the boys have gotten out of 4-H, they said, will be put to good use in the future — particularly when it comes to good leadership skills. This January, Joseph said he plans to go to Manhattan Area Technical College to participate in the school’s lineman program, and he said what he’s learned in 4-H will be beneficial to his education at MATC.

“It’ll help me with leadership skills, being able to work with oth­ers to accomplish a goal, and it will also help me to better communicate with them and give better instruc­tions on how something needs to be done. And there’s responsibility,” he said.

Meanwhile, John and Joel put the skills they’ve honed in 4-H to use daily.

“If I’m out there doing a job and something’s not getting done, I may not have been the one told to do it, but someone needs to do it, and I can jump right in and get it done,” Joel said. “It’s about leader­ship — just taking responsibility and taking action.”

John also wants to consider his leadership work in 4-H.

“I’ve renewed my Ambassador’s application for this year, and I want to continue to work as an Ambas­sador,” he said. “I want to learn a lot about different aspects of 4-H and take a better initiative to im­prove my club, my community and myself.”

And, of course, there’s much to gain from 4-H membership, even for those who don’t live on a farm.

“You can learn a lot about re­sponsibility from any project,” Jo­seph said. “You make yourself a better person by taking the initia­tive to look up new recipes for your cooking project, or go find a new arts and crafts project, and you challenge yourself to be the best by taking it to the fair and putting all your hard work into it because you want to try to get the grand cham­pion award. It helps you to drive yourself to be the best at some­thing... That makes you a better person.”