County Fair Memories & Life Lessons

In this episode of Under the Covers, Bill and James celebrate county fair week with a look back at their 4-H days: livestock projects, static exhibits, fair memories, and the lessons that stuck around long after the ribbons were handed out.

Growing up in the Greenbrier 4-H Club, the guys talk about the impact of long-time club leaders, how 4-H clubs changed over the years, and the shift from boys’ and girls’ clubs to co-ed groups, with a detour through some classic club names along the way.

From showing cattle and hogs to static exhibits like rebuilding a John Deere tractor, building toolboxes, and making wooden stilts, this episode walks through the full fair experience. Bill and James talk about beef pen of three, the responsibility of livestock projects, the emotional side of raising animals, and the strange mix of freedom, chaos, and community that made the fair feel like the center of the universe.

They also reflect on what 4-H taught them beyond the projects: record-keeping, public speaking, production agriculture, community service, responsibility, and how to function on very little sleep.

Whether you grew up in 4-H, raised 4-H kids, judged a project, hauled livestock to the fairgrounds, or just know the beautiful madness of fair week, this episode is for you.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Under the Covers, where all of our cards are on the table, whether we meant to play them or not. I'm Bill. And I'm James. We're the founders of Iowa Cover Crop, and we disagree about nearly everything. These are the same conversations we've been having for years. It starts with farming and usually ends up somewhere else. No script, no sales pitch, no guarantees. We're right. To keep this from turning into a three-hour debate, we play a game of cribbage while we talk. When the game's over, the episode is over. Somebody's probably wrong. Someone's definitely losing. This is under the covers. I pledge my head together. Oh no, we got we're doing it. Yeah, we gotta do it together. All right, Ray. I pledge my head to clear thinking, my heart to greater loyalty, my hands to larger service, my health to better living for my club, my community, my country, and my world. Hey man. How are you? I am feeling the 4-H Fever. Nice. Gosh. Uh I can't believe you still remember that. Well, Lee is in 4-H, so we've had to do this at least six. I think you gotta do six meetings before the fair, maybe. Oh, okay. Is it fourth grade, fifth grade? Fourth grade. Fourth grade. Next year, you're in. Nah, two years. Lee's only in second grade? Yep. Oh. Well, you got a little time. Yeah. But they're in Clover Kids, right? Yep. Yep. They're doing some showing. Kate and Leah? Yep. Well, Kate's not, I mean, she goes, but she's like under the radar because she's not old enough to be there. She's cheating. She's cheating. So she's learning through 4-H through Clover Kids. But her mother is the like chicken and poultry or chicken and uh rabbit superintendent. So she she gets to slide in. Is that so like life lessons that she'll learn? Like, you don't have to be 21 to go to the bark. It's not what you know, it's who you know. Okay. That's the rule. Have you talked about what 4-H club you're gonna join? No. Sorry about that. Hey, deal them however you want. Um geez. Tell you what. Um, no, and I don't even know. Does Greenbrer still exist? Yeah. Greenbrier hasn't changed. Oh, but it's not at the church because the church is gone. Well, okay, the church is gone. Linda's still the leader. So that's good. So nothing's changed. Okay. And God willing, she'll be the whole time your kids are. What a I think about her and Randy and like Eldo Walker and a handful of people like that that like really leaned in and devoted themselves to that service. Holy cow. What a great sacrifice. I bet you she's been doing it for well, we've been out of 4-H for 30 years. Ugh. If you think about that, we started 4-H 30 years ago. Yeah, we did. Oh, okay. We started 30 years ago. 10, yeah. You we started 30 years ago. Yeah. And we were, I was only I really was only out for about 10 years, 12 years. Yeah. I yeah, she man, what a so she's probably been doing it 40 years. Yeah. Probably. And that's awesome. Yeah. Uh she I I'm I think she got like a lifetime achievement award. As she should. Yeah, yeah, well deserved. So um James and I, for those of you that don't know, James and I grew up in the same 4-H club. That's probably our first time we ever met. Well, I mean, outside of like kindergarten or whatever, but like first time we were in a small group together. Yeah, so we were in the Greenbrier 4-H Club. It was boys separate from girls when you first started, and then they combined them. As God intended. Combined them as God intended or kept them separate? Yeah, separate, yeah. It was way better separate. Yeah, 100%. Um, I really don't remember them separate that much because they kind of merged them right away. Really? Yeah. We were only combined. I mean, we were only separate for a couple years. Or do you think we were longer? I don't ever remember girls, sir. I don't really remember anything pre-2005. Really? I don't think so. You graduated high school in 2004. I know. I swear, like, I remember some like really weird key moments, but like I don't I couldn't tell you if there was ever a I don't remember a girl in our meeting. Maybe they were the Greenbrier go-getters. Right? The girls were. No. I talked, I they were because I talked to Lance Lawton about this like a week ago. Didn't he just call and ask what the girls club was named? It's like a it's a fraternal bond, the the Greenbrier 4-H Club. You just sometimes drop your comments on what your 4-H club was called because they all have cool names. They do. Wreckin' River Rockets, I thought was always really cool. Is that what you guys are in now? We are in Washington Winners. Oh, you're winners. Yeah. Um I always thought the KGB generic club. It's like, and that was like even they would have been going on during the Cold War, it would have been KGB. Have you ever thought about that? Yeah, I was lucky they didn't get like put on the list. Um, Kendrick Generic Bunch. Bunch, yeah. And why is that a good thing? Generic bunch. Where's Kendrick Township? I don't even remember. It was mostly PC people. Okay. So I don't really know.

unknown 5:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

They were so generic. Norse too generic for me. Remember, remember when like Fairway had the generic brand called Fasco? Yeah. That was like whatever happened to Fasco. I feel like KGB was actually a pretty good group, too. They won basketball tournaments. Yeah. Um, so we were in the same 4-H club. We grew up uh sh whoa. Yeah, that was a nice one. 16. Holy cow. Uh we grew up showing cattle together. Yep. And did you ever show pigs? Oh, yeah, towards the end I did. Yeah, we should show pigs too. You showed pigs. I was just talking to Melissa about this because we have pigs right now, Lee showing pigs. And and she's like, Well, Bill doesn't want to have pigs. Like, Leah doesn't get to show pigs. And I was like, What are you talking about? Bill had pigs every time, and she like argued with me. And I was like, You're wrong, Melissa. He showed pigs almost the entire career. Yeah, maybe my entire career. Yeah. And you're not gonna let her have pigs? Uh I don't really need pigs at our place. We we we did the thing last year where you could show an older kid's pigs, like the clever kids could. That isn't the same, Bill. No, it's way better because I didn't have to do any pig chores. Pig chores are like the easiest chores. They like Lee told me this the other day, like because we had pigs. This is the first time we've had pigs, and he said, pigs are like they're on automatic. Yeah. Like once I fill the feed, that's all. Yeah. That's all you do. Maybe that's why pork's not worth anything. Well, that and a couple of reasons. One reason. Yeah. Uh no, I don't know. I mean, I mean, I don't really have the facilities to I don't have I don't have a little barn to hold them in. That is bull. We always grew up in with a little feroin barn. Do you think you could come up with an A-frame that you could have a pig? I mean, come on. You can still buy hog rings. I don't remember anything about them. Yeah. You are qualified to raise pigs. Actually, you know what it is? I their eyes are so sad that I don't want to kill them. And I know that Melissa said you were gonna bring this up about the how they act too much like humans. Yeah, they're very human-like. And and I I have heard from many old timers about like the day they have to harvest their pigs, is like that's the day you see your dad, like your grown dad, cry. That was the only time you saw your dad cry. Oh. Because they're like they became pets. You know, back in the day you only had like 10 hogs. They became pets, and you were like goats are like that. Yeah. If you've been around goats long enough. We had goats. You didn't want to kill them. I wanted to kill my goats every day. They were like pets to me. It took restraint for me not to kill my goats. They were better than dogs. You had better fence than I did. No, they got out all the time. They'd come and visit you, hang out. We had baby trees when we had goats, and so they would just stand on them and break them off. That's your own fault. Yeah, I needed to make a choice there. And I did. I got rid of the goats. Whose crib is this? This is mine. Okay. Uh, so that's actually probably the main reason is when I look at a pig's eyes, I think, I don't know if I have it in me to kill you. I well, you know what, you know what you need to do? It's Leah's project. So make her a kill. You don't have to do chores. You only see it once. Then you're not emotionally attached to it. Uh that's a good idea. All right. So you should pigs. I should emotionally scar my child. That's a better idea. You know, they need to learn where their food comes from, though. Yeah. Uh so and that's what 4-H is about. Yeah. One thing it is about. It is for sure. So we consistently had one project that we always competed against each other. Yeah. All the way through. The Petit 3. Yeah. The beef. Beef Penethree. And we've been consistently buying that trophy. Sometimes we pay too much for it. At the like beef uh, or what do they call it? The trophy auction. Cattlemen's auction. We shouldn't have said that because now we're gonna like get run up. Yeah, probably two years ago. It almost brought the same as the grand champion. That's how sought after it is. And I think I think without even like you and I haven't talked about it a ton, but I think we try to buy that trophy to support those kids because we think it's a valuable project. It's a valuable project because you really see where your um like that is like a direct impact of like production agriculture, essentially. Yeah, you have to so in Beef Pen of Three, you pick out your three calves. What'd you weigh in? Four or five? I weighed in five this year. Weigh in five, three, twenty-six. You pick, you pick your three that are gonna fit uh together the best, basically. And then you you show them like you know, you don't lead them, right? But they're in a pen. You judge them based on how they look, and then you judge them on their carcass, carcass marin, and how well they grew, like performance, rate of gain, yep. Yep, and you keep records on them, so you have what they weighed coming in, what they weighed coming out, what your feed cost was, like you had all of your calculations. Okay, converted, yep, daily rate of gain, all that stuff, and so it was like real practical knowledge. Um so I have a conundrum because I I honestly don't know what to do here. So we weighed in five steers, okay, and then we moved, and I just threw him in a pen with all the other steers. Only I know is they got the four-h tags, that's the only way to tell them difference. I look at them, but then since we moved, Lee hasn't been going and helping me as much on the farm. Now we have the other 4-H animals, he does shores every day, twice a day, super responsible with the sheep and the hogs. Like he's awesome about it. And but he hasn't really done anything with the cattle. Should I take the cattle, even though he didn't do anything? Is there but to be a learning experience for him? How can you how can you be better about it? Well, yeah, like how can you be more intentional about getting him in there? Yeah, weekends are the only time. And because we live kind of far away from the feed yard now, it's just it's just tougher. Yeah. Yeah, that is tough. I and and it's not like he's not he doesn't want to do it, it's just a logistics thing. Yeah, and because you know, he's got soccer and this and that and the other thing. And so like it's not that he hasn't been helping me with some things, it's just a lot of times it's like someone else will feed him because that's just yeah. Like anyway. He's gonna have to quit soccer. He's just gonna have to quit. You need him on the farm or school. I think he should quit school and um probably just be an order buyer. And then he'll learn a lot. He would learn a lot because it's math, it's uh psychology, it's social skills, yeah, it's history. Yeah. What else is it? Uh I don't know. It's not really geometry, it's health. Is it when you learn about health? Like I think this, I think I can put this one on a load. It isn't gonna die until he claims me. You know, like stuff like that. Yeah. What so what else did you show in the fair? I showed hogs, lead steers. You showed lead steers a little bit, but nope, I didn't. My sisters did, I never did. I looked lead steers, penetrates, hogs. That's it. Did you do did you do anything in the 4-H building? Yeah, I would uh I always had a project in the building every year. Yeah. Um sometimes multiples, but every year, I think I was required to have one project in the building for every project I had outside. Oh, nice. That's a good rule. So um, do you have stuff in the building? Yeah. What was your coolest thing in the building? Uh I redid a 44 John Deere A. Oh, wow. Yeah. And it was okay. I was probably not that good at it, but I old were you? Uh probably like a freshman in high school. Oh wow. Yeah. I have a so I built a toolbox my first year. I did a toolbox once. And it was like one that had like a uh dowel run through it, you know. Oh yeah. You know, like you pick it up. And my dad wanted one to carry like medicine stuff. Yeah. So you made him a 400-pound toolbox. It is, it was made out of pine. But here's the thing. So it is, well, it's 30 years old. We use it almost every day. Really? We it's still going. And now I don't know. Like if it broke, I'd have to build another one, like exactly like it. I bet you could do it. I probably could. I made a pair of wooden stilts one time. That was pretty fun. I still have them. Do you ever use them? Yeah. Is it just so you can like dance with normal sized women? Yeah, I take it to town on Saturdays. You should you should learn to if you okay. That that's a short joke for those of you that aren't following along. Those pretty short. You should start like, how how tall are the stilts? You're like, you would have stilts. They're like six inches, so that's actually pretty good. That's the most ironic thing. Yeah, mom was like, if you want your basketball career to take off, you probably better build some stilts. You should start. You know, like ball guys wear toupees and I'll just slide those under my pants. You should start wearing stilts and see if anybody notices. You should probably trim eye. I gotta throw some cards out. Did you throw you took the turnkle and put it in your hand? I did not. I did not. I have six cards per Pete. That was too tough for me to recover. You know, this is how you get me is you say BS stuff like that. And now I cannot focus. Because now all I can think about is you adding six inches, and all of a sudden you're you know, how tall are you? Five two? I'm like five, geez. I'm like five five. So then now all of a sudden you're you're a little over six foot tall. Yeah, I'm about a six footer. Will you do that for bell tower festival? Put them on, and then just I'll give you some pants. Yeah. I never thought about this, but I probably made them right about the time that like my basketball dreams were ending. It was probably like '98. The Bulls had just won like their last championship, and that was like the last time that I made them. You were like 18. I was like, this is it. If this doesn't work, I'm probably gonna have to wrestle. I thought you didn't have any memory pre-2005. I'm telling you, just the weird ones. That's it. That is a weird one. You made stilts. I don't think I am gonna make fun of you about that forever. Uh you're just trying to change the subject. Okay. Um, but I did all kinds of things in the static. Ah, that's good. Yeah, that's a good one. Like, I remember making like uh bars. I actually we had, I just I totally forgot about this until right now. Um when was it? We had a flower contest in the open show like five years ago. Just recently. I don't think it's something I don't even know what happened. I don't know who won. Doesn't matter. But we both brought flowers to the open show. So a little kidding me. Is that a go-to? Yeah, that's a go. Um just recently at the open show we we've been taking small grains every day. That's right. And um last year you cheated. I did? Yes. I don't think that's right. Your mom was the judge. And what did I say at the beginning of this episode? Do you have another card? I have another card. Your mom was a judge, and for some reason you beat me, even though mine was a better wheat. And your mom was rigging the thing. It's not what you know, it's who you know. But also, this is very typical of our personalities. I followed the rules to what you were supposed to do. Like you were supposed to cut them to like six-inch stems or whatever, and you just cut them and didn't think about it and brought them in, and they docked you because you didn't cut them to the right length. That's the excuse that you cheating people do. You know, you gotta play by the rules. So last year if you if you if you don't weigh in, you can't wrestle. That's what they say. Yeah, well, that's it is no good. And this whole stilt deal probably cost me 10 points because I wasn't paying any attention whatsoever. Steel Stiltgate 2026. Uh what was your okay, so so they have they have the they have an open show at the fair, and we've been we've been entering the open show every year here for the last five, and we've been bringing small runs for the most part. Getting that premium money.

unknown 19:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

They still give premium money in the open show, and I love it. It's bought 10 or 15 bucks. Yeah. It buys you a beef burger. It'll pay for one person's one supper. It's awesome. Which is for my mom makes out like a bandit. She brings like 35 flowers, wins everything. She makes like it's a part-time job for her, basically. It's the fair. I know how this, I know how this cheating goes. I get it. My mom was okay. I'm not gonna, I don't want to reinforce your ideas, but my mom was the chicken superintendent, and I went on a run where I was like grand champion chicken shower for like 10 years. Well, when you're special, you gotta give give them when you you're special, you gotta give them every boost of confidence they can get. I took it and I loved it. I so what's your least favorite fair memory? Oh, least favorite. Do you have a bad fair memory? I don't know if I have a bad fair memory. So or 4-H memory in general. This is my synopsis of the fair. Is we have a we have a super nice fairgrounds here in Green County, by the way. It is just completely top-notch. And um the coolest, so it doesn't have a carnival anymore. Yeah, not anymore. Um, which is fine. I don't think that's like affected anybody's no um so it's no carnival, and it's got really nice facilities because the um the fair uh board members have been really f uh for like they've been like really had good foresight. And they have this really cool thing where they rent all the facilities out to Singenta to store seed boxes. And um it basically pays for all these really nice buildings. Yeah. Ah, that's 33. Um so my favorite thing about the fair is it is a place where, and this one I'm finding as an adult. 25 um go is it's a place where your child who isn't quite old enough to Do I get a pair there? Yeah, you do. And I get a last car. Yep. Um, it is a place where if your child isn't quite old enough to like go and kind of like run around by themselves, that it's like it it's a community where like they can kind of do their own thing and kind of run around, which you don't have to worry about them going missing for the most part. Yeah. Now we say that. Yeah. But uh like you should keep one eye on them. Yeah, but there's enough like other peers and adults that know your people that we were in 4-H with that now have their kids in there. They'll be like, hey, Lee, or hey, what are you what are you doing? Right. Like, don't be an idiot, essentially. So I think that's the coolest thing about the fair, and it's not just one thing, but it's like a culmination of like maybe like a little bit of learning about yourself and freedom. Yeah, it is a good place to like really like get your reins loosened a little bit for the first time. Yeah, that's true. It's usually a lot of people's first kiss. My first kiss was at the fair. What? Who? I you know, if I knew her name, I would say it. Whoa. It was a girl take me back. It was a girl that was from a surrounding county, and somehow she must have gotten a ride up to the Green County Fair. And up outside the county. And I had gone to 4-H camp with her. Okay. She was there, and obviously you hit it off. This is like in middle school. Okay, middle school, and and then um yeah, I had a kiss at the historic, like right by the historical society. Oh my gosh. I can tell you what type of gum she had, but I could not tell you her name. Let me guess. Big red. Big red. Nailed it. No. I just guessed what I would have. That's what I would have done.

unknown 24:22

Big red.

SPEAKER_00 24:23

Big red isn't even like a gum anymore. I tried buying it the other day. It's hard to find, it is difficult. We shouldn't have to live like this. I know. It's too difficult. Um wow. Uh so you and your first kiss at the fair, that's pretty exciting. I think um one of my favorite times at the fair was the big water fight after classic, right after the tug of war. Yep. I don't know if they do tug of war anymore. I'm not sure either. But yeah, they would just like you'd be at the cattle washing stations and you'd be filling up five-gallon buckets and throwing them at friends or water balloons or whatever. Someone would get their lip hit. That was just part of it. Somebody would bleed by the end of it, but it was a great time. Everybody was everybody was there. It was so fun. Yep. There's a lot of good memories around the fair. Um, we went to Bill and I, when we were either juniors or seniors, we went on the Citizen Washington Focus, where we went on a big 4-H trip to DC. Yep. Where we've actually met some people that we have relationships with now from different areas. In the seed world, yeah. Yeah. And um, like kind of ones that we had had no touch with them, and then we got in back into into professionalism and we're like, oh, do you know this person? Like, well, yeah, I know them. Like, we went to we shared and washed one week together 20 years ago, and we're still like for some reason best friends. Yeah, it's pretty cool. It is so um, so yeah, so that's uh something we did, and that was a really fun trip. We went to DC and stopped at Gettysburg. Yes. I had my first bread bowl on that trip. Whoa, yeah. You you were kissing girls. I was eating my first bread bowl. So well, I was equal. Another first for me on that trip I cannot say on this podcast. It was a great trip, though. Man, that was fun. Yeah. Um, Bill, we were talking about this before, but uh what was your favorite part of the fair? What part do we have? What is your most memorable, happy moment at the fair? That's what it is. Okay, we were talking about this, and it also can't go on the podcast, but I have one question. Yeah. What was the pattern of said outfit during the forage dance? This cannot go on the podcast. It will go on the podcast. It cannot. It was whatever the handkerchief pattern is with like the swirlies and the like the western wear shirt. Yeah. Paisley's. Red paisleys or blue paisleys. As clear today as I saw it 30 years ago. That was 2000. None of this is usable footage. This is all gonna be on the podcast. Bill, you said at the beginning, you said I don't remember anything prior to 2005. And then you're telling me right now, there was as clear of an image as I can see of the day it happened. I feel like there, you know, in the sand lot when uh Squint is like at the pool. Yeah. That same thing, basically. But not the same, but just like it's that ingrained into you and I's brain. I this this better get on the podcast. It will be on the podcast. Uh anyways. Uh what were we talking about? All right, so this so Green Canyon Fair is j it's it's it's earlier. Second week of July, yeah, July 13th to something. Right at wheat harvest time. Yep, that's when Bill harvests wheat. Uh what are you guys, what are all you guys taking? We're taking sheep, hogs, chickens. Okay. Gotta do a project inside. Undetermined. You don't really determine that inside project until the last June. June 5th of the. And then maybe that penetratory. Oh. Yeah. You guys are gonna be busy. Yeah, I can't go. Really? Um what do you take? Oh, and then open show. I'm gonna take oats and wheat and rye. Okay. And maybe I'll be flowers? Should we have a flower challenge? I might leave a little section of mustard. Um and then do you think I can win the mustard division? Uh we have to take a bottle calf, maybe two bottle calves, chickens. Um I think that that's probably about it. The like before 4H, it's you can only do so much. I think Leah wants to show somebody else's pig again, so she'll probably do that. What are you taking in the open? Uh I don't have any oats this year, but I will have wheat. Soft wheat. Soft and hard wheat, yep. Um I'll probably have I might I'll probably take some vegetables. Um maybe some flowers. Yeah, I don't know. Is that five? Is that five? Uh run a five and then two fifteens. Anything. What? A pair. What was your favorite 4-H event outside of like show and livestock? Or maybe even outside of the fair. What was the best part about just meeting with the Green Rare 4-H Club? Oh, I was gonna say this. I was thinking about this before that I don't think I have anything in here either. Is that zero? Uh now you got a pair, but that's it. Yeah, just two's. Wow. Um so Lee just gave us first, so every 4-H meeting you have to do a presentation. That's like part of the requirements. You gotta do a presentation. Do you think that's everywhere you gotta do that? Yeah, I think that's pretty universal. And I've been telling Lee that he should do a presentation about how to give a good presentation. And he just thinks that's the funniest thing ever. It's funny. But like, that'd be a good presentation because like some people actually need to have learn how to give a like an intro, a body, a conclusion. Sure. We should probably learn how to do podcasting. He should do it and then tell us about it. Yeah, exactly. So he did he did he made energy balls instead because his mother, who was not in 4-H, told him he couldn't do a presentation by presentation. You married somebody that wasn't in 4-H? Did you thoroughly vet her? I probably should have vetted her more, but she was not in 4-H. Um, but one thing I found during the presentations, and actually your cousin is in the Washington Winners. Which cousin? I mean your cousin's cousin, your cousin's boy.

unknown 32:05

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 32:05

The Dan's boy. Owen? Yeah. Okay. And the older boys I get a kick out of their presentations because they obviously thought about it last night. No, no, no. No, no, no, no. They thought about it when they pulled into the Methodist church at Rimpy. Okay. Yeah, like there is not. He gave a presentation of the correct way to mix uh insecticide spray, which you know is rattling in the back of his truck. Right. And another one tools do I have? Yeah, another one gave a presentation of the correct way to hold a golf club. So again, you know that thing was rattling. That was in the trunk. That was in the trunk. You gave a presentation. This is one of the three things that I remember pre-2005. You gave a presentation on how to cast a fishing pool, and you had like a five-gallon bucket that you would like throw weight into and you would try to cast and aim correctly. Did I hit it? I don't remember that part. But I do remember that presentation, might be the only presentation I remember. So that's what I was getting at. The one of the only presentations I ever remember was, and maybe this will spark a memory. Do you remember James Haley's presentation? No. He gave. Oh, you're in trouble. He gave, he gave a presentation about his Venus fight fly traps. Oh, and you would have been there. Sweet. And he trapped flies like in a ziplock. Yeah. And then he released the flies into the fly trap so then we could watch the trap eat the flies. That's great. That is, it doesn't really get any better than that. No, that that's major cool points. Good job, James Haley. Yeah. So uh if he's listening, yeah, wherever you are, he might still have a Venus flytrap. I don't know. That's pretty cool. Um I feel like I always like panicked and never thought about it. And then I was like, I'll make cookies and I'll teach people how to make cookies because then like nobody's mad when they have cookies at the end. No, but then I've noticed everyone does. It was terrible. Yeah, it was I I have a lot of regrets. That's why I think the presentation about a presentation, I told Lee, could be memorable. Yeah. Because be like, remember when that little fourth grade boy decided to do that? 27. 27. All right, uh, go 30. 15. Shh. Um yeah, presentations were fun. Do you still have your record book? Yep, we actually found it. I it's moved to a spot that I have no idea where it's at, but it's taken care of. Because that's what record books do. I heard that you don't have to keep a record book anymore. I don't believe that.

unknown 34:53

Shh.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

Okay, good. Because I don't support it. You think you should have to. You should have to, yeah. Yeah, I think, I mean, it's like one of those things, we went through the pain. Everybody should do it. So, yeah. You have a lot of points. Uh yeah. 15, 23, 6, 9, 15, 17. You might go out there. Close. Um well, you hit me consistently in this game. Uh, I'm out. Dang, that's the quickest it's ever been. You got about 40 points on that. I'm just gonna relax and talk about 4 H. You can so what is one thing you still use today from 4-H? Well, we said the 4-H pledge when we started, which I can't believe I still remember line by line, but I do, and I like as we were saying it, and we were kind of talking about it earlier, it's a great pledge. Like, the words are perfect, like it it's all about taking care of yourself to take care of your community, and I think that's kind of how we you and I both try to live, and it's how we both try to run the business so that it's uh something that like is a it is a net gain for the community. Yep. Uh and I think that's a big that's I don't know if that's where it came from, but it was definitely one of those places that that pounded service into our brains. And as an adult, what I think the fair, so we're in a county with two school districts, and at the time when we went, there was three. Yeah. And so I think the fair is a place where everyone in the county gets together, and you might interact with someone that's sure lives in a place like Kendrick Township.

unknown 37:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:05

Yeah. So that you might only see a couple times a year, but yet have a relationship with and you're part of community with, which I think is really neat. Yeah. Um, and as an adult, that's kind of what I look forward to the most is like seeing people that maybe I haven't talked to in a year or a long time, they just run into the fair because everyone basically goes out. Yeah. Yeah. And we talked to a lot of people from like Dana and yeah, Sherdan now that we were in 4-H together with. Yes. And do business with people. Yeah. Yep. Um, you know what we didn't talk about that we have to hit before we stop this? What's that? The best part of 4-H. The Cooper basketball tournament. Yes. You know, I don't even know if they have a basketball tournament. I don't know either. But that was the biggest to do in Cooper, the town of 50 people, maybe. And we will get uh Resna Johnny Carson. In the old, in the old, in the old school gym that had been closed down for decades before we got there. We would have a big basketball tournament, club versus club. Yep. I don't think we ever did that great, but we were never good. Yeah. It was always PC kids would always win. Yeah, PC or Rack and River Rockets because they had all the Peterson kids. Yeah, they're right. They're like eight feet tall. Yeah. But like, man, that was so much fun, and in such a a tiny like ramshackle place that people would just make bars and bring bars. You know, it didn't have to be anything fancy, it was just, it was really grassroots, super fun. And people, there would be a lot of people in attendance. Just to cheer on. Yeah. It was crazy. Yeah, that was fun. The best part was if you were gonna beat somebody like Keith Peterson, who was in our class and 10 feet tall, you had to put you didn't put your best player, you had to strap your stilts up. You had to you didn't put your best player against him. You put the fourth grade girl against him, and every time he did anything, he would get booed for like getting a rebound over the sometimes. Yeah, there was the rules were really, yeah, they would move around a lot. But that was the way you beat those guys with put your like cutest little girl against Keith Peterson. That was how you beat him. Yeah. Yep. God, what a great time. Good time. You should buy the Cooper Gym brand pack. Just run basketball tournaments out of there? Yeah. Okay. That's a good idea. Yeah. That's a sound investment. Yeah. It won't be an expensive investment, at least. Uh, anyways, uh, did we do this? 4-H is if get your kids in 4 H. If you're the girl that kissed me in middle school, drop your name in the comments. Shout out. We'd love to know what your name was kids. Uh yeah. In the near the historical society building with big red gum. Were you were you chewing big red in what year was that? 19 1996. Yeah. I learned more about you in this podcast than I have in a long time. Yeah. Same. Yeah. 4-H. What a great, what a great organization. Join it right now if you're in school. Yep. Yep. Catch you next time. Like what you heard? Follow us between episodes on Facebook and Instagram at IowaCovercrop. Or send us an email and tell us what you really think at info at Iacovercrop.com.