By JULIE CARLE
BG Independent News
Together, Doug and Linda Michaelis have dedicated almost 90 years to Wood County 4-H youth—46 and 41 years to be exact.
They have spent countless hours devoted to 4-H kids through their club, the county program and beyond.
Their contributions were recognized this week at the start of the Wood County Fair when they were named grand marshals of the Junior Fair Parade. Each year, that honor is bestowed on the best of the best—individuals whose contributions have made a difference in the lives of junior fair youth and of the fair overall.
They both were honored, though Linda is quick to point out that Doug’s involvement has been more visible, as a long-term member of the Wood County Senior Fair Board, and for all the time and energy he has put into Wood County 4-H Camp. He is well known for, and especially proud of, his role as “DJ Doug” at dances at 4-H camp, the fair, area high schools, and also at weddings of so many 4-H kids who grew up in the DJ Doug era.
He got his start after attending, watching and enjoying Bob Bradley call square dances. As a collegiate 4-H member at Bowling Green State University, he got involved calling square dances and then later expanding his repertoire to DJ-ing.
He is still DJ-ing and wherever he goes, he is recognized as DJ Doug.
For Doug, 4-H has been a family tradition.
“Ever since I was born, it was all around me the whole time,” he said. His parents, Wayne and Mary Michaelis, were advisers of the Tontogany Four Leaf Clovers for more than 40 years. Doug just followed in their footsteps, with Linda by his side
Four-H has been at the center of their service. When Doug was old enough to join 4-H, the club was primarily a beef club and gradually added other livestock and 4-H projects over the years. Membership has fluctuated over the years from 10-15 members when he joined to as many as 100.
One reason the club’s membership grew exponentially was because of their reputation for building great parade floats.
“A lot of the members were there because we constantly built floats,” Doug said. “A lot of members would invite their friends to come over and help work on the floats. Then the next year that kid would join the club because they had so much fun working on it or just riding in the parades. Everyone wanted to be part of the parades.”
The club first started building floats in 1975 for Tontogany’s centennial celebration. Doug’s mother took Doug and his sisters and some friends to see a parade at Whitmer High School to get ideas for the club’s float.
He was 15 years old when the club built its first float. “After that, we just kept doing one right after the other,” he said.
Among the most memorable over the decades were the Flintstones, a volcano with erupting lava, a full-size firetruck and an Aladdin-themed float with a floating magic carpet. There was even a train that was so impressive, other organizations asked to borrow it for other parades.
“We always got started right after 4-H camp,” Doug said. “Almost daily, as soon as I got home from work, kids would start showing up to work on the float.”
Once he was elected to the fair board, his time for float-building was more restricted, so Linda and other club advisers and parents stepped up.
The parents and assistant advisers were always willing to pitch in and help, Linda said.
Doug has been instrumental in planning and helping with Wood County’s 4-HCamp as well as with Camp Palmer, in general.
When former Wood County 4-H agent Jayne Roth started in the role in 1985, she was told Doug was the person to talk to about 4-HvCamp. “I’ve got to come talk to you because I heard you’re the person that leads all this,” she told him.
He’s known for “doing big,” Linda reminded him. “Ever since you’ve been there (Camp Palmer), you do big.”
Doug recalled a time when they built a TV screen for a camp activity for people to act inside the set. “Jayne said, ‘Can’t you make it bigger?’ So yeah, we made it bigger.”
Doug and Linda also carried on the tradition of helping members with 4-H projects or taking them to the state fair judging if their own families didn’t have time.
Because of Doug’s time on the fair board, their family vacations were usually fashioned around fairs–Wood County’s and others across the state. He worried that their kids missed out on more traditional vacations, but they assured him they enjoyed the camaraderie of friends and families coming together at the fairs.
During his time on the fair board, he joked that he may have gotten in trouble “more than once or twice” for doing work without asking for permission.
“That’s why I was surprised at being chosen for grand marshal,” he said with a smile.
“I was just raised that way; if something needed to get done, you just do it,” he said. He always tried to be frugal and use materials already on hand.
He had a hand in upgrading one of the old restroom facilities that did not have any doors on the stalls, and making the home and garden building restrooms accessible.
“I tried to pick one project every year, something that bothered me on the grounds, just to hae something different to work on,” he said.
When he was nominated for the award at a fair board meeting earlier this year, the board acknowledged that he was a director who spent countless hours working on the grounds to improve the fair for the kids and the community.
Though Doug retired from the fair board after the 2025 fair, walk across the fairgrounds takes a long time as he is stopped by so many people to chat and catch up.
“It’s those connections and relationships that have been built over the decades,” he said. “It’s hard for me to walk around this fair or a lot of other county fairs and not see somebody that I know.”
And like the 4-H motto, their goal is always “to make the best better.”
Their mission along the way has always been to use 4-H as a nurturing tool that encourages members to do their best job possible on any task, inspires continuous self-improvement and focuses on building skills through 4-H projects and activities.
“We want the kids to feel positive about themselves as they pursue their career, their life journey,” Linda said.
