Bill Thurston inducted into Ohio 4-H Hall of Fame

Ash­ley Junior Farm­ers 4-H Club Vol­un­teer Advi­sor Bill Thurston has the dis­tinc­tion of being involved in Delaware County 4-H as a club mem­ber and an advi­sor for more than half of the youth devel­op­ment organization’s life.

In 1902 A. B. Gra­ham started “The Tomato Club” in Clark County, which is con­sid­ered the birth of 4-H in the United States. By 1910 the dis­tinc­tive 4-H clover pin had been devel­oped; and by 1912 agri­cul­tural clubs form­ing around the coun­try were called 4-H Clubs.

Delaware County 4-H was devel­oped in 1918. Thurston joined the Ash­ley 4-H Club in 1940, showed live­stock projects at the Ash­ley Fair until it closed in 1949, served as club pres­i­dent in 1948, and sub­se­quently became an advi­sor of the Ash­ley Junior Farm­ers, the same club as the Ash­ley 4-H Club, in 1953.

Thurston was one of four inductees into the Ohio 4-H Hall of Fame dur­ing the March 9 Ohio 4-H Vol­un­teer Con­fer­ence Cel­e­bra­tion of Vol­un­teers’ at the Colum­bus Con­ven­tion Center.

Thurston was rec­og­nized for his statewide influ­ence and par­tic­i­pa­tion in 4-H dairy activ­i­ties and the dairy indus­try, and for guid­ing club mem­bers in the Dairy Quiz Bowl, dairy-judging con­tests, Spring Dairy Expo, the Ohio State Fair, the Ohio Skill-a-Thon Con­test and Dis­trict 10 shows.

It was noted that Thurston has been an exem­plary role model and men­tor to hun­dreds of club mem­bers through the 4-H pro­gram. Under his direc­tion par­lia­men­tary pro­ce­dure is taught and used at each meet­ing and pub­lic speak­ing skills are learned by mem­bers com­plet­ing a demon­stra­tion on each project; and numer­ous pub­lic ser­vice projects con­tinue to be com­pleted by the Ash­ley Junior Farm­ers 4-H Club due to good citizenship.

Thurston received a sil­ver bowl for his 60 years as a 4-H advi­sor; his pho­to­graph will hang in the Ohio 4-H Cen­ter on the cam­pus of The Ohio State University.

The Ohio 4-H Hall of Fame was ini­ti­ated in 1977, dur­ing the 75th anniver­sary of 4-H with the enshrine­ment of A. B. Gra­ham, founder of 4-H in Ohio, and the liv­ing char­ter mem­bers of the first 4-H Club.

The pur­pose of the 4-H Hall of Fame is to rec­og­nize indi­vid­u­als who have made sig­nif­i­cant life­time con­tri­bu­tions of ser­vice to the 4-H pro­gram and who have also made an impor­tant pos­i­tive impact upon clubs, com­mu­ni­ties and the Ohio 4-H program.

Most 4-H projects are still live­stock ori­ented, but as the coun­try becomes more urban and less rural, 4-H is chang­ing. Many clubs now focus on health, fam­ily life, pho­tog­ra­phy, aero­space sci­ence, bicy­cles, nat­ural resources, safety, hor­ti­cul­ture and nutrition.

For addi­tional infor­ma­tion on 4-H in gen­eral, go to < ohio4h.org >. For spe­cific infor­ma­tion on Delaware County 4-H clubs and activ­i­ties go to < delaware.osu.edu > and click on 4-H Youth Development.

Posted by Gary Henery on Mar 20 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.