My Personal Role In My Community

By Jenny Byl

Grade 12

Striving to make a community better is not as hard as it sounds. Doing a little task can brighten one’s day. I feel that I have made my community better through my involvement in 4-H and school activities. Now a senior in high school, I have been a member of Cushing 4-H for ten years. I played softball when I first started, setting a personal goal of being the best team ever, and giving the community some entertainment. I also showed cattle at the Polk County fair. I learned from other children and parents how to clip my animal and how to show it. I find myself now showing other local 4-H children how to show their cattle and how to clip their calves. Seeing the smiles on the child’s face as he realizes that it is possible to train his “wild animal” is worth every minute I spend teaching him. I also love to work with other 4-H children keeping our area clean in the barn. I help bank the straw and sweep the dusty dirt floor, making sure the visitors don’t get dirty when coming to see our animals. I know I have become a better person by showing animals at the fair, winning various awards such as Grand Champion and Reserve Grand Champion cow, and also winning showmanship last summer. By being a better person, I hope I make the children want to try new ideas.

Cattle judging is also something I am very involved with. Since I was nine years of age I have met many people from Polk County while learning to judge cattle very well. This last summer I represented Polk County along with three other teenagers at the Wisconsin State Fair cattle judging contest. I placed fifth overall. Now I will represent Wisconsin and will be judging cattle at Louisville, Kentucky, on November 8 at the National contest along with three other high placed individuals. Representing my county and now my state is truly one of my greatest accomplishments. I hope I have inspired a little child to strive to do his best because anything is in his reach. Going to 4-H camp was always something my friends and I used to look forward to in the summer.

Being too old to go as a camper, I now am a camp counselor. This last summer I made 4-H camp a safe, fun place for community children. Playing games, singing songs, hiking, swimming and canoeing or just talking to the children really made their stay one to remember. Going to 4-H camp as a counselor was a great experience for me. Learning to work with little children along with working with other counselors was a challenge. Sometimes having to say “no” to a child at camp was hard, even if I wanted to do it, being a child myself, but knowing it was wrong. Being able to correspond with the children was awesome, and knowing that they couldn’t wait until next summer was even better.

Not only my 4-H involvement but also my school involvement makes my community better. I have been actively involved in student council for two years. Planning homecoming or a spirit week for the student body is worthwhile. Making it a fun and safe way to show one’s spirit in the school, I see many teenagers open up to their surroundings, from doing a dance in front of the high school students or expressing their point of view in a class meeting. I have also helped plan a memorial service for the community who lost three very loved and missed teenage boys. Helping the community remember and express their feelings during this time was an honor on behalf of the student council and administration.

Sporting events are something most people look forward to. Being in basketball for three years, was a great experience. I watched the community come, and cheer my team on to a victory , but even if my team lost, the crowd still rooted us on. By being an upper classmen in a sport I held a lot of responsibilities. I taught the underclassmen how to run a play and even gave them some key tricks or even lifted their spirits when the game didn’t go their way. Sometimes it could be hard to give such guidance when I was learning myself, but needless to say the underclassmen lifted my spirit too. Not only do I hold a responsibility on the basketball court, but I also do on my parent’s four hundred acre dairy farm. I hold a big responsibility of milking seventy cows, feeding the cattle, and helping to harvest the crops. Making my family’s operation run smoothly day to day is a big job. Making sure that the community has food and milk to drink plays a part in keeping not only my farm, but also farms all across the nation in operation. My past has taught me that community involvement is very important. I plan to continue my involvement in my future community.