Bob and Henriette Area to lead Jackson County Fair parade
This year’s Jackson County Fair parade will be led by Robert and Henriette Area of rural Mayetta, big believers in the potential that young people can tap into through the 4-H experience, as evidenced by their work with the Mayetta Mustangs 4-H club.
“4-H in Jackson County and all over the country gives young people such an opportunity to learn skills and to learn how to interact with people from their community who may be from different kinds of families or walks of life,” Henriette said.
“It gives them a chance to grow and learn,” Bob added.
For their many years of service and support to 4-H and the Meadowlark Extension District in Jackson County, the Areas were chosen as grand marshals of this year’s parade, set for 6 p.m. Wednesday, July 17 on Holton’s Town Square.
“We were pleased,” Henriette said of being chosen to lead this year’s parade. “It’s an honor, for sure, and many, many people are deserving of that honor, too, so it’s always like, ‘Us?’”
Bob’s experience in 4-H goes back to his youth, having grown up in the Soldier area and taken part in 4-H activities with the Soldier Boosters club, even though the Jackson County Fair wasn’t a really big part of his experience then.
“The 4-H didn’t push it or anything,” he said of the fair. “So I probably didn’t know there was a fair until I was about 13 years old.”
As he got older, though, Bob worked as a project leader in swine in 4-H and as a cattle producer while his children with his first wife, Grace, participated in the Mayetta Mustangs.
“It was a good experience for them, too,” he said of his kids’ work in the Mustangs. “Especially when the clubs were run right, with no messing around.”
Henriette, however, grew up in Topeka and didn’t get to experience growing up in 4-H, but in the 1970s, she was invited to help members of the Hoyt Livewires 4-H club with sheep projects. She and Bob became friends after Grace died in 1984.
“My brother and Bob were good friends, and that’s how we met,” Henriette said.
After they were married in October of 1985, the Areas continued to watch their “blended” family grow up in 4-H, and they had a son, Will, together, who drew Henriette more into the world of 4-H and Extension.
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