District Food Challenge Results

The Rockwall County Food Challenge Team competed at district. Team members included Sophia Creech, Victoria Reynolds, Alexa Cox, and Kate Pierce.  The group had a super fun time and won the Cleanliness Award.

San Antonio Livestock Show and Rodeo

Anna Scieberle participated in the market goat show at the Stock Show.  This was Anna's first major show.  She has shown Floppy at the East Texas Fair in the Fall of 2010 as well.  As this was a terminal show  Anna exhibited Floppy and then let him to on the processing truck.  Though Anna did not place with  Floppy, she learned alot and will put that learning to use as she prepares for the Rockwall Youth Fair with her goat - Elvis.  Here are a couple of pics of Anna preparing for the show.

Mr. Schieberle was working the goat show  as one of the ring stewarts while the rest of the family was preparing Floppy for the big event.  Thanks for your leadership Dad!

Food and Nutrition Project Activities Are in Full Swing

Project activities are in full swing for the District Food Challenge Competition.  We have two teams entered for competition from Rockwall County.  The Clovers 4-H Club and the Busy Bees 4-H Club both have teams.  Below is Busy Bee Coach, John Pierce going through some of the exciting basic concepts.  To find out more about this fun project activity, contact your Food & Nutrition Project Leader.  If you are unsure who that is in your club, ask your club manager.   Thanks to all of our leaders for making a positive impact on our youth.

 We hope to show you more as the groups get in the kitchen and start mixing ingredients together.  What fun!

Kids Helping Kids

Kids Helping Kids is off to a great start!  We collected between 15 and 20 boxes of books before the project officially "kicked off" on February 1st, and are hoping to collect a truckload of books by the end of March. 

Local book donation sites include: HEAR Co-Op, Boys and Girls Club of Rockwall, Rockwall County Library, The Fulton School, Lakeland Academy, the office of Dr. Holly Fisher-Britt, the office of Dr. Bart Miller, Amazing Athletes, Casey @ Fannin Place Salon, Rochell Elementary School, Hartman Elementary School, Celia Hays Elementary School, Williams Middle School, Royse City Middle School, The Storage Locker, and Heath City Hall.  We also received 5 boxes of books from Half Priced Books and, while they're not a donation site, they have agreed to donate books throughout the drive.

You can help by donating at least one children's book.  You can bring your book to one of the donation sites, or to the Extension office.  If every 4-H member in Rockwall County donated just one book, we would collect 125+ more books.

In early April, Mr. Irving Nelson, Program Supervisor for the Office of the Navajo Nation Library, will come to Rockwall, pick up the donated books, and to present a program for 4-H members.  Mr. Nelson recently received the Prism Award from the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian for his efforts to support literacy in the Native Community.  We'll let you know as soon as a date is confirmed for his visit.

Consumer Decision Making Project - District Results

The District Consumer Decision Making Contest took place in late November.  Unfortunately we have not reported on it through the blog.  The results were posted in the newsletter, but here they are again with a pic.  We had complete senior and intermediate teams with two junior individuals. 

Senior Team members included: Heather Rowe, Rachel Simpson, and Bobbie Carr.  They won 4th place and Rachel took 4th place high individual. 

Intermediate Team members included: Tanner Howey, Victoria Reynolds, Trevor Rowe, and Bradley Simpson.  The team won first place with Bradley winning 2nd place high individual and Tanner winning 3rd place high individual.

Junior Individuals included:  Ashlyn Stembridge and Reese Simpson.  Reese was 2nd high individual in the junior division.

Congratulations to everyone. Also thanks to the families for helping at the district competition, and to Mrs. Dee Dee Simpson for taking leadership of the project.

Fort Worth Stock Show News

Today is the second of February and the BIG FREEZE is in full swing.  Thankfully most everyone is finished with the Fort Worth Stock Show.  We had several 4-Hers participate at the stock show this year.  Starting off the festivities for Rockwall County were Katie and Brian Callaghan from the Busy Bees 4-H Club with their Breeding Goats.  What a show!  It was the largest goat show at the stock show to date.  The barns were full of awesome breeding meat goats.
Brian took 4th place with his goat and Katie took 8th place with her doe in the first show.  On the second day during the second show, both did an outstanding job showing but did not place in the ribbons.  The Callaghan family and I learned a great deal about prepping a breeding goat for show.  We watched professionals at work and then started on their girls (their goats) to enhance their best qualities and hide the flaws.  Congratulations on a great show. 

The second week Rockwall County was represented by Tanner Howey, Sam Evans, and Will Morris - all from the Rockwall Clovers Club.  Tanner started off the Junior Beef Heifer Show by leading the crowd on hand in the Pledge of Allegiance to the American Flag.   Later he exhibited his Angus heifer and won his class and then took the Fall Heifer Calf Champion honors.  Congratulations Tanner.

Sam and Will were in the Swine Barn, where it was warmer, with just as much activity going on.  They exhibited their hogs in the Commercial Breeding Gilt Show.  Sam took 3rd place with his entry and Will made a great showing, but did not place in the ribbons.  Later both showed off their showmanship skills by competing in the showmanship competition.  Congratulations guys on a great show!

As we moved into the third week, the market goats arrived for competition.  Competing from Rockwall County were Anna Schieberle, Kaite Callaghan, and Brian Callaghan - Busy Bees 4-H Club.  After weigh in, there were over 500 goats divided into 16 classes. The show was broken into a two day affair.  All of our goats were in class 15 with the weight break of 96 - 104 lbs.  They showed on Sunday as the weather began to get cooler.  Everyone did a great job showing.


Thankfully everyone got home safe before the winter wonderland hit.  I hope to have more pics to add to this posting soon, so check back later.

Thanks to all of the family members who played valuable roles in the success and development of these young people.  Make no mistake, they don't do this by themselves.  4-H is a great opportunity for families to grow together.