Nashville, Tenn. – Meradeth Whitley has been named the 2019 June Dairy Month Chairman for Union County.

Whitley will be honored May 30 at the Tennessee June Dairy Month Kickoff Event at Battle Mountain Farm in College Grove. The event includes recognition from Celeste Blackburn, president of the American Dairy Association of Tennessee.

The official kickoff celebration recognizes Tennessee 4-H members’ efforts to promote June Dairy Month in Tennessee. The event is co-sponsored by The Dairy Alliance, 4-H and the Tennessee Farm Bureau.

Agriculture partners joined forces in a pleasurable and educational event for Paulette Elementary School students on May 15. This was the 25th Annual Farm Day hosted in Union County. The event is hosted at one of the county’s five elementary schools each year, in rotation, so that every student in the county gets at least one attendance.

Although the brisk air is blowing, our 4-Hers have hot 4-H camp weather on their mind this season. From October 3-14, 2018, Tractor Supply partnered with Tennessee 4-H holding the Fall edition of the Paper Clover Campaign. The campaign is held biannually at TSC with 4-Hers working by selling paper clovers as a fundraiser to earn scholarship funds to attend 4-H camps. The 4-Hers receive eighty percent of all funds they raise during the campaign towards their personal camp fees.

Tennessee All Stars was established as a recognition program for outstanding 4-H members. Before a 4-Her can become an All Star member, they have to be a member of their local Honor Club. Union County Honor Club is organized and meets monthly on the second Tuesday at the UT Extension Union County. Students, grades six through twelve, are encouraged to join and become more involved in their community through service projects, volunteering, and leadership. All Stars provide service to others through individual and cooperative efforts.

Union County 4-Her’s had a blast at 4-H camps this summer. Junior 4-H Camp was held June 4-8 with a record of forty Union County 4th-6th graders attending. This was a large increase in attendance over past years. Junior High 4-H Camp was held July 9-11 with five Union Countians attending, including two teen leaders. Both camps are held in Greeneville at Clyde Austin 4-H Center, Monday through Friday annually.

4-H is a Learn By Doing club, and there are many 4-Hers doing just that over the summer. Proudly, Union County kicked off the beef and sheep showing season at the County and Region Beef and Sheep Expo on June 25th with great participation. The shows were held at Chilhowee Park in Knoxville, June 25-27. Several beef classes were shown including weigh steers, commercial heifers, and registered heifers. For sheep there were registered and commercial ewes and market lambs. There were contests such as skillathons and county-group-of five.

Union County 4-H greatly thanks the community for tremendous response to the 4-H Friends and Family Campaign. The campaign was launched by the Tennessee 4-H Foundation to provide county 4-H clubs with an opportunity to grow funds, gain new support, and increase awareness of 4-H. Union County joined the movement, and with overwhelming donations from patrons in the county, raised funds towards a goal to grow the county’s established endowment fund.

Allison Baugh, Knoxville, Tennessee native, is a senior at the University of Tennessee, majoring in Agriculture, Leadership, Education, and Communications (ALEC) and minoring in Plant Sciences. She is a graduate of Knoxville Catholic High School and the youngest coming from a family with much experience at the University. Her older brother was a Forestry graduate in 2016. Also, her mother, from Spring City, and father, from Chattanooga, are both UT Alums. Allison anticipates graduating as a part of the May 2018 class.

The Union County 4-H Hog Club headed to the state competition last weekend, a truckload of middle schoolers, high schoolers, and the hogs they spent the fall and winter raising. The Hog Club has been going strong since 2014, teaching students valuable skills from animal care to public speaking.

Folks like to complain about “kids these days” with their heads in their phones all the time, but would you believe that the impetus for starting the Hog Club was a teenager? Union County’s UT Extension Agent Shannon DeWitt said it started as a little bit of a love story.