A Powerful ReachRooted in Tradition, OSU-led 4-H adapts as it grows responsible young people across Oregon.

The story of OSU’s 4-H program and the ways it reaches nearly 75,000 children across Oregon has so many important parts that it almost defies telling.

In and around John Day, in remote Grant County, 4-H is Tate Waddel, born with cerebral palsy, and his mom Simmie Waddel or one of his siblings — all 4-H members — rising early on a frigid morning to help Tate care for Bam Bam the half-ton steer.

Bam Bam was destined to be sold at the 4-H auction so Tate could give the proceeds to the local physical therapy team that cares for him. It was a good deed that would trigger a cascade of generosity that will impact John Day and the surrounding area for years to come, but more on that later.

Oregon 4-H is also Maureen Hosty, 4-H director in Multnomah County, teaching unforgettable lessons about endangered wildlife and indigenous culture as she takes a pair of live lampreys on a tour of pandemic-bored Portland schools. The slimy fish with their scary-looking sucker mouths provide a compelling way to tell an impactful tale.

Tate Waddel shows his steer, Bam Bam, with help from his mom, Simmie Waddel, raising $33,000 for charity at the Grant County 4-H auction. Photo by Steven Mitchell

“I never thought walking into a school with a couple of eels splashing in a tub would make me feel like Mick Jagger,” Hosty said. As OSU’s Leonard and Brenda Aplet Financial Literacy Professor, she also teaches 4-Hers how to manage money.

And 4-H is Mario Magaña Álvarez, ’97, M.A.I.S. ’99, state 4-H outreach specialist, sorting through college and high school graduation invitations from multiple generations of Latinx students whose lives he has altered with programs that reach into communities to show students how to rise from humble beginnings and earn their way to an education. His personal story is their story, and he shares it with fierce joy and encouraging candor. There’s no telling how many generation-changing transformations his work has ignited.

4-H in Oregon is also excited kids learning to swim in the pool (the one with the familiar 4-H green shamrock painted on the bottom) at the Oregon 4-H Center north of Salem.

I never thought walking into a school with a couple of eels splashing in a tub would make me feel like Mick Jagger.

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It’s children who might never have considered flying for a living, or maybe even designing airplanes or spaceships, sitting in a cockpit as a whole new ambition takes root during a 4-H aviation club field trip to the local airport.

It’s a city kid who’d never visited the Oregon on the other side of the Cascades getting a chance to try ranch life as part of a 4-H exchange, discovering he’s a cowboy (a real one, not the movie kind) at heart, and going on to become a well-paid, expert ranch hand. And it’s a country kid going the other direction in the same exchange program, spending time with a Portland surgeon and realizing that’s exactly what she wants to be and going on to accomplish that.

Among myriad other opportunities, OSU 4-H participants can master sewing skills, learn how to harvest salmon eggs and get them fertilized and hatched and then, after tending them, release the babies to swim toward the ocean. Photos courtesy Oregon 4-H

Or how’s this: At a time when civil discourse can seem imperiled from top to bottom in our democracy, 4-H is thousands of young people sitting in mandatory business meetings for 4-H clubs that offer their favorite subject — maybe sewing or canning or dog training or entrepreneurship or robotics or raising bunnies or long-distance fitness running — and learning to conduct their business and speak clearly in public and make progress on their issues with respect for everyone’s opinion.

A 2019 impact statement provided data-driven insight into the scale of the program, using pre-pandemic numbers.

Across the U.S., more than 6 million children are involved, making 4-H the nation’s largest out-of-school program for children (notwithstanding that many of its programs reach into schools).

About 75,000 young people across Oregon participate, with 9% living on farms, 36% in towns with a population of 10,000 or less, 24% in cities between 10,000 and 50,000, and 30% in urban areas (including suburbs) larger than 50,000.

More than 6,000 adult and youth volunteers across the state make it all possible by leading clubs and teaching skills.

At Oregon State, 4-H is one of several programs under the umbrella of the OSU Extension Service, which in turn is part of the Division of Extension and Engagement. A stated goal of OSU 4-H is to have a person from the OSU faculty, with an appropriate master’s degree, in charge of 4-H in each of Oregon’s 36 counties.

It’s all part of the university’s time-honored, land-grant commitment to spread practical knowledge wherever it’s needed.

In all but one county (Multnomah), 4-H is funded partially by a locally imposed extension tax. Other support comes from government appropriations, from fees charged to the children who participate and from philanthropy.

Oregon 4-H is supported by the Oregon 4-H Foundation, a group of impassioned volunteers that operates as part of the OSU Foundation. Its members are tasked with lofty fundraising goals to maintain and expand 4-H across the state, while keeping it affordable for children from cash-strapped families.

And while 4-H has proven over the years that it will evolve and offer almost any type of knowledge-based, practical content for young people that’s needed, it has never turned its back on its roots — the cooking, canning, sewing and livestock raising that many envision when they see the familiar green shamrock.

And that brings us back to 10-year-old Tate Waddel and his 4-H story. Tate was born with a life-threatening disorder that got worse and left him with cerebral palsy. He was life-flighted out of John Day and spent his first 61 days at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland.

An Oregon 4-H outreach program brings children who might not be thinking about college careers to campuses to get a sense of what it might be like to be a scientist. Animals from frogs to horses and beyond are frequently part of the 4-H experience. Photos courtesy of Oregon 4-H

“We drove one to two times a month to Portland or Bend for the first five years of Tate’s life,” recalled his mom Simmie. She and Tate’s dad, Wade, who is a sheriff’s deputy, have huge extended families in the area, so large that their 4-H kitchen skills club is called the “Cookin’ Cousins.”

Tate is “about as upbeat as they come,” his mom said. “He’s not a big complainer. Everybody knows him. He has absolutely no filter, says hello to everyone he sees and gives them a high five.”

She seemed surprised when asked how old Tate was when he showed an interest in 4-H.

“Around here, it’s not really a decision. 4-H is a way of life for us,” she said. For years, Tate raised a calf and took it to the 4-H auction, but in 2021 he decided he wanted to raise a full-sized steer and give the profits to the local rehab unit that cared for him. Here’s what happened next:

Tate named the steer Bam Bam. Simmie asked the local feed store if she could buy Bam Bam’s feed at cost. A national feed supplier offered it for free. Local businesses reimbursed the family for the original cost of Bam Bam. Steven Mitchell of the Blue Mountain Eagle wrote a great story about Tate’s plan. Someone from the Sisters-based Roundhouse Foundation, on the lookout for ways to help organizations in rural Oregon, saw the story and donated warm coats for the 4-H Tree of Joy and enough money to help with 4-H fees for any youngster in Grant County.

Bam Bam sold for an astonishing $33,000 at the auction. None of it would have happened, said Simmie Waddel, without the support of 4-H.

“Community involvement, citizenship, running a business, running a meeting, public speaking, raising and caring for an animal, hard work, responsibility and making good choices,” she said. “It’s all in there. That’s what 4-H does.”

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