Erin Klubek remembers all too well early forays at the Allen County Fair.
She joined the Square B 4-H Club almost on a lark, because a few of her friends had decided to restart the group.
“My older sister (Megan) and I decided we wanted to help,” Klubek said.
She did so with frequent success, earning top ribbons for her foods and photography entries in particular.
Now, the setting has changed.
Long gone are those days in which Klubek would seek, and receive, assistance from older 4-H’ers as she prepared her fair projects.
Instead, she’s the one who others turn to for help.
“Sometimes I’ll help (4-H’ers) from other clubs, but mostly I help those inside our club,” Klubek said. “After all, we’re all kind of competitive with each other.”
With its total enrollment of fewer than 20, Square B offers more one-on-one instruction for its younger members, Klubek noted.
“We can work together a lot more,” she said.
Klubek hopes to stick with what works in the 2017 Fair, which gets underway this week.
She’s putting the finishing touches on her photography and foods entries — two mainstays — while returning to another former project, buymanship.
“I restarted buymanship last year,” Klubek noted. “It was always fun to go to the Friends of 4-H Picnic and get to see the kids. I figured I’d try it again, and I saw I still liked it.”
Tuesday’s Friends of 4-H Picnic includes the annual Style Revue, in which participants will be judged on either clothes they made themselves or those purchased (dubbed buymanship.)
Klubek sticks with buymanship, which she described “mostly shopping,” but with a few twists.
Participants look not only at style and price, but how such an outfit best fits a 4-H’er’s lifestyle, including “how much it will cost to wash, if it’s something that can make us look cool, and if we can afford it,” she explained.
