4-H teams will attend Western National Roundup in Denver to represent Alaska in livestock and horse competition

4-H Teams from the Mat-Su/Copper River, Kenai and Fairbanks/Tanana districts will be attending the Western National Roundup in Denver, Colorado to compete in livestock and horse competitions on Jan. 8-11. This is the first time in several years that an Alaska livestock or horse team has attended a national competition.

The teams are fundraising to attend the national competition. Funds raised will cover travel expenses and registration costs. Donors can connect with the clubs and teams by reaching out to their local district leaders at https://www.uaf.edu/ces/4-h/quick-links/district-directory/.

Livestock Competition

The 4-H livestock team will be competing in a quiz bowl at the national competition. The team will consist of four members: Sylvia Reimers from the Idea Champions 4-H Club in the Mat-Su, Ella Rankin and Levi Rankin from the North Range Riders 4-H club in Kenai and Skye Glessing from the Funny River Lynx 4-H club in Kenai. Kenai Peninsula District 4-H Program Coordinator and the Alaska 4-H Livestock Representative Cassandra Rankin will be attending the competition with the team.

“They'll make a great team to represent Alaska,” Rankin said.

To qualify for nationals, 4-H teams from the Tanana, Kenai and Mat-Su/Copper River districts competed in livestock competition in May of 2024 in Fairbanks for the state event.

The livestock competition consists of four segments. The first is a skillathon, where 4-H members answer a variety of questions based on livestock farming. The second segment is livestock judging for cattle, goats, swine and sheep. Judging is conducted on both market animals (for harvesting of meat) and breeding stock. The third segment is a public speaking event that includes a speech or demonstration. The fourth segment is a team quiz bowl, where multiple teams compete against each other in a game-show format. Each team member holds a buzzer and can chime in to answer questions. Questions cover a vast range of livestock related topics, including breeding, feed, farming equipment, livestock medications and anatomy.

The livestock team from Alaska placed first in all segments, but opted to attend nationals in quiz bowl Coach Melissa Reimers said.

Despite low numbers of participants in this year’s state livestock competition, Rankin still wanted to host the event. To facilitate competition, a South-Central team was formulated from team members in the Kenai and Mat-Su/Copper River 4-H Districts.

“We felt it important to continue, because it's an important endeavor to encourage those youth who are working very hard in their livestock projects and their livestock knowledge,” Rankin said.

The livestock team has been studying as a group and individually to prepare for the competition. The team has been hosting group practices over Zoom twice per week according to Reimers.

Reimers shared that both her and the team are excited to travel to compete at nationals. Other 4-H members from their club have been to the event in the past.

“I'm super excited,” Reimers said. “I just want to experience all the things that are offered at the venue. Meeting the people, talking to other enthusiastic club leaders from all over the states. I'm super excited just to experience all of it.”

Besides participating in competition, Reimers hopes that her team will be able to learn about new opportunities from their travels to the Lower 48.

“I hope that they feel a little bit small, there's a big world out there,” Reimers said. “There is a big world out there that's so full of opportunities… Going to something like nationals is just scratching the surface. I hope they have a hunger to travel more and learn more.”

Horse Competition

There will be two 4-H teams from Alaska to compete in the horse competition. The team from the Mat-Su/Copper River will be competing in hippology (the study of horses) and the team from Fairbanks/Tanana will be competing in the horse quiz bowl. Similar to the livestock competition, the horse competition consists of a hippology course, horse judging, public speaking and quiz bowl.

The Mat-Su/Copper River horse team members include Elsa Rodriguez, Lexi Malone, Faith Stewart, and Lydia Hanson from Knik River Riders 4-H club. Sarah Rodriguez is the coach and club leader for the team. Rodriguez is also the president of the 4-H Horse Council for the Mat-Su/Copper River District and sits on the Alaska State 4-H Horse Advisory Board.

The hippology portion of competition requires a vast range of horse knowledge. Teams will have to judge and rank horses for confirmation based on breed standards. Teams will also complete a written test that covers anatomy, physiology, nutrition and equine management. A station test will cover different bones and parts of the digestive system. The final portion is a team problem, where each team will be presented with a real-life scenario. They will have 10 minutes to develop a course of action and present their solution to the judges.

The current team has been competing together for three years according to Rodriguez. They have won several district and state championships in the horse competition. This will be their first time attending nationals.

Rodriguez mentioned that the team has been receiving support from local livestock professionals, such as large animal veterinarians and farriers. These members of the community have been educational resources for local 4-H members by hosting courses on topics like horse and livestock breeding and conducting limb dissections.

“They've been attending a lot of different classes,” Rodriguez said. “We've had a lot of community support helping coach the girls.”

Rodriguez said the team is excited for all that nationals has to provide. Being from Alaska, the team will get to experience and learn from animals of a different caliber otherwise inaccessible to them. The members will also get to connect with other like-minded 4-H youth from around the country.

“They love getting together at the state level and at the national level with other kids, and getting to build those relationships and make connections and meet new friends,” Rodriguez said.

Attending the competition at Colorado State University (CSU) will expand the team’s knowledge on the agricultural industry. CSU is known for its College of Agricultural Sciences and College of Veterinary Sciences and Medicine according to Rodriguez. Experiencing an event like this one in the Lower 48 could open new doors.

“I think they're really excited to look at opportunities,” Rodriguez said. “A lot of them want to go into something that's ag related for a career. So this gets them to see some of the options that they have.”

Rodriguez will be attending the team to the national competition. She referenced how hard the team has worked to get to this point.

“I'm just really excited to sit and watch them because they impress me,” Rodriguez said. “I'm excited just to watch them do their thing because they've worked so hard… They're incredibly intelligent, articulate, well-spoken young ladies and it's really fun to watch them work together and see what they can do. Because it makes you excited for the future for them.”

Sarah Curwen is the leader for the North Pole Ptarmigans 4-H club. Her team, coached by Emma McCready, will be attending the national event to compete in the horse quiz bowl. Team members include Chelsea Curwen, Winter Moon, Dean Watson and Anja Wandling. Their competition name is the North Pole Frosty Tales. Coach McCready attended nationals as a 4-H member in the past and wanted to train the team to compete at nationals.

“It was her goal and her mission to get these kids to nationals the same way that she had done,” Curwen said.

The team has been competing together for three years now and has grown more competitive every year, according to Curwen. They took first place in the state horse quiz bowl this past April earning them an opportunity to attend the national competition.

“They're all very knowledgeable,” Curwen said. “They're just excited to be going and hoping that they'll do well.”

Curwen said that the team members all filled out scholarship paperwork that asked what they wanted to learn from this experience. All members, who are 15 and over, wanted to promote the sport for the next generation.

“They all pretty much put that they want to bring it home to the younger generations and try and keep the younger kids that are in 4-H,” Curwen said. “They want to come in and get the younger kids excited about trying to do horse bowl and learning alongside them…. They want to help those kids go to nationals someday.”

4-H In Alaska

Almost all of the coaches and club leaders emphasized how hard 4-H members have to work in Alaska to compete with youth in other states. The difference in climate, growing season, feed costs and overall lack of ranching industry sets Alaska apart from many traditional agricultural states.

“I always tell folks that the youth in Alaska who study livestock, who raise livestock, they have to work extra hard to learn the things that youth in the Lower 48 maybe just kind of grow up knowing,” Rankin said. “From being raised on large farms and ranches, living in areas where the agricultural language is just very fluent.”

Despite the challenges that young 4-H members in Alaska face, Rankin said that they are very knowledgeable and have to adapt what they have learned to work in Alaska. She said that members learn to build confidence in themselves and work hard to promote 4-H for future generations. They also become an educational resource for other farmers and ranchers in their communities. Rankin believes that they will be the future of agriculture.

“Those will be the folks that will be producing and growing,” Rankin said. “They're going to be the ones who are going to be in the agriculture industry in the future, our future Farm Bureau members… those folks that we rely on.”

How To Get Involved

Even with the challenges of Alaska, Rodriguez believes that 4-H and Future Farmers of America (FFA) membership is growing in the state. She urges more youth to become involved.

“It's a really reasonable program to get kids involved in, because the 4-H membership is only $26 a year for kids to join,” Rodriguez said. “There's so many opportunities for them to be able to explore things they want to explore… I think it's a really great program and a resource sometimes that parents aren't aware of for their kiddos.”

To learn more about how to get involved 4-H in the Mat-Su/Copper River, Kenai Peninsula or Tanana Districts, contact program coordinators Samantha Blumenkonig at sjrussell5@alaska.edu, Cassandra Rankin at crankin4@alaska.edu and Marla Lowder at mklowder@alaska.edu.