Published: September 07, 2007 02:44 pm            

Houston County 4-H’ers at fair reflect on flooding back home

Originally published in the September 7, 2007, print edition.

Earning a State Fair trip is quite an accomplishment for any 4-H’er, but this year’s trips meant a little something extra to a number of 4-H’ers.

A quartet of Houston County 4-H’ers in the beef barn annex reflected on what they and their area has endured since the mid-August rain deluge that dropped up to 17 inches in bluff country.

“We had to cancel part of our fair because of the rain,” said Jaci Tweeten, 18, from Spring Grove.

Alex Scholze, an 18-year-old who lives in Hokah, said some 4-H’ers’ livestock had to find new homes after the abbreviated Houston County Fair in Caledonia.

Alex and his sister Taylor both showed hogs at the State Fair. Tweeten and Joe Morken, also from Spring Grove, both showed beef cattle.

“There were even a couple of girls who had earned trips to the State Fair, but were unable to attend because of the flooding,” Tweeten said.

The trip to the State Fair provided a bit of a respite from what the 4-H’ers and their families face. In the context of the losses in southeastern Minnesota, these four youths’ families went relatively unscathed.

The Morken family lost some livestock fence, the Scholze family was out of power for a couple of days, but that pales in comparison to what other families from their area suffered — complete loss of homes and loss of livestock. There were even seven people who lost their lives.

Adversity has been known to bring people together.

As Tweeten mentioned, the Houston County Fair was cut short by a day.

“All the main 4-H competitions were done, but we canceled the showmanship contest and awards ceremony,” said Nicole Pokorney, 4-H Youth Development regional Extension educator in the Rochester regional office. Pokorney is filling in for Houston County 4-H program coordinator Kelly Wilkins who is on maternity leave, and that allowed Pokorney to see the true 4-H spirit in action.

“There were families who didn’t have a place to take their livestock home, so other families pitched in,” she said. “One family had multiple species at the fair, so another family took the dairy cows, and another family took the sheep, and so on like that.”

Some livestock had to stay at the fairgrounds, “so the fair board members cleaning up the fair grounds made sure these livestock were getting fed.”

Houston County livestock exhibitors are offered the opportunity to have their livestock all hauled on one semi-trailer to get them to the State Fair.

In neighboring Fillmore County, a trucker destined to haul livestock to the State Fair was unable to fulfill his duties.

“We had a trucker who is a volunteer fireman in Rushford who had to stay back to help with rescue efforts,” said LeeAnn Howard, Fillmore County 4-H program coordinator. “But we live in such a wonderful area that when people heard that he couldn’t haul the livestock, others stepped up and offered to haul.”

Howard said some of the Fillmore County 4-H’ers attending the State Fair 4-H livestock weekend had a few reservations about being there.

“There were some kids who thought they should be at home helping out because their grandparents’ home was flooded, but they opted to go to the fair instead,” she said.

The Houston County quartet looked at the State Fair as a chance to get away from the crisis and forget about things for a little while at least.

“4-H is a wonderful community in itself that when people at the State Fair learned where we were from, they knew what had happened and were offering help, regardless where they were from,” Howard said. “We had people from Roseau County offering to help whatever was needed.”

Pokorney echoed that sentiment. “Kids from other counties and educators from across the state all asked what they could do, what they could provide for us,” she said. “You truly saw the “Heart, Hands and Health” thing in action ... they were living it.”

        

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