By JULIE CARLE
BG Independent News
Amy Michaels started her job as Wood County 4-H educator five days before the start of 4-H camp, within a month of 4-H judging and about six weeks before the Wood County Fair.
In other words, she hit the ground running the moment she started the job at one of the busiest times of the 4-H year.
The unflappable Michaels took the chaotic entry time in stride.
As a 4-H member in Sandusky County for 13 years and a former 4-H program assistant in Sandusky and Ottawa counties over five years, she was more than familiar with 4-H.
With each experience in the new job thus far, her focus has been to learn and understand the Wood County 4-H way.
The main difference is not in programming but in scale. “The quantity of everything just means larger numbers,” she said. Wood County’s membership is about twice as large as those at her previous county locations.
“I didn’t come in and try to take over something,” she said about arriving after this year’s activities were already planned and in progress. “I’m just here for the ride, to see everything and learn about everything I can.”
Michaels grew up the youngest of four children on the family’s Sandusky County farm, where they raised mostly beef cattle and crops. She first learned about 4-H from close family friends whose children were active in 4-H.
She was the first in her family to join 4-H, Michaels said. None of her older siblings had participated. She joined the Jackson Busy Beavers 4-H Club, determined to show a beef feeder.
“When we got all the information about 4-H, I saw they have all these other projects,” she said. “I’m nine years old, and I have no idea there’s all these things I can do in 4-H.” In addition to the beef feeder, she also signed up for a scrapbooking project.
“My little nine-year-old self told my parents, ‘I think I need to have one page in a scrapbook,’” she vividly recalled.
Two nights before judging, her parents were looking at the project book and noticed the project required not just one page but an entire scrapbook
“That first year, I had a crash course in staying up all night to finish a scrapbook for judging,” she said with a laugh.
Her first-year scrapbooking efforts earned her an honorable mention, and the beef feeder project became a fun, family bonding experience as they learned and worked together to get her and the animal ready for the county fair.
“It was a whole different experience seeing one in a pasture versus trying to get a 400-pound calf to walk with you,” she said. But after that first year, she was hooked.
She took the gamut of projects throughout her club years—clothing, and lots of art and leadership projects.
During her later years in 4-H, “I did all the 4-H things”—junior fair board, junior leadership, CARTEENS volunteer, beef princess, beef queen, junior fair court and camp counselor; though she admitted that she never attended as a camper because she was “one of those kids who would have gotten homesick.”
Excited about the projects and inspired by the kindness of Sandusky County 4-H educator Gwen Soule, 4-H became a huge part of Michaels’ life. “If you were to ask me when I was 15 what I wanted to do, I would have said, ‘I want to be the Gwen.’”
She was not athletic; in fact, she was homeschooled, “so sports weren’t even an option,” she said. “My thing was 4-H, and that’s where I found my spark.”
“Amy was a very active 4-H member who took advantage of many opportunities 4-H has to offer including club work, a very wide variety of projects, 4-H Camp, and leadership programs,” Soule recalled. “I enjoyed watching her grow up in our program and especially appreciated serving as her mentor when she volunteered as a camp counselor.”
The professional side of 4-H opened her eyes to experiences beyond her 4-H youth. She also realized her passion in Extension was 4-H rather than agriculture. She worked at the Ohio Agricultural Research & Development Center one summer. The best part of the experience was teaching a school group about corn. That was her aha moment that solidified her plans to work with youth in 4-H.
“I’ve had all kinds of unique perspectives of Extension (service),” Michaels said. “The multiple perspectives have helped me see the many different sides of extension, and how they all work together.”
In addition to traditional 4-H, she has seen 4-H in urban counties, a non-traditional side, and through school enrichment, she’s learned the value of “reaching youth who might not grow up on a farm or who only know agriculture by driving past a farm field.”
That same perspective has allowed her to gain “a really big appreciation” for the lessons found in everything 4-H.
One of the most meaningful 4-H lessons came from her older brother Tim after a fair when nothing was going right for her. The teenage Michaels, exhausted and frustrated after losses in the show ring, fell apart near the end of the fair.
“I was bawling my eyes out, and he told me, ‘At the end of the day, even though you might not have done good in your classes, we know you put in so much work. That’s the most important part.'”
That memory has stayed with her and is part of the message she shares with her 4-H’ers.
‘Wood County gave me a chance’
Michaels’ journey to Wood County happened, in part, because her end goal was to become a 4-H educator.
“As the program assistant in Sandusky County, she regularly sought feedback and advice to continually improve the programs she was leading,” Soule said. “She is organized and a very hard worker, but also a ‘people person’ who excels at building positive relationships with both adults and youth.'”
After five years as a program assistant, most recently in Ottawa County, Michaels was ready to make the move. Her only caveat was that she wanted to be no more than an hour and a half away from her family in Sandusky County.
She had created a map with an hour-and-a-half radius to know where she should be looking. When nothing opened up within that radius, she was ready to make the circle a little broader. Before she expanded the job search radius, the Wood County 4-H educator job opened. She had multiple people send her the listing right away.
She applied, got an interview, but remembered being “a nervous mess.” Also, she was sick and tried not to cough throughout the interview. “They chose me. They were the ones who gave me a chance to be here,” she said.
In the nearly two months since she’s been on board at Wood County, highlights have included 4-H judging and Camp Palmer, but she is really looking forward to her first Wood County Fair. She had the gargantuan task of ordering 700 tubs of ice cream and 60 gallons of milk for the 4-H Milkshake Barn.
“That was shocking,” she said about the extreme quantity of ingredients needed to make the fair milkshakes. She ran an ice cream booth when she was a program assistant in Ottawa County but only remembered going through about 400 tubs of ice cream.
“It’s been a long time since I got to spin milkshakes after growing up in Sandusky County doing that as a member,” she said. “While everything is a learning curve for me, I’m excited to be making milkshakes again.”
Michaels is also looking forward to meeting more 4-H families during fair week and getting to know the 4-H members. One of her favorite questions to ask members when she meets them is “What experiences have you had that make you who you are?”
She hopes to bring a sense of fun to the position, whether she’s working with Cloverbuds, senior members or volunteers. “I hope if I’m having fun, it trickles out and makes everything more enjoyable,” she said.
Her biggest goal is to help kids find their spark, like she did in 4-H. “I want to know what makes them light up. That’s the most important part of this job.”
