Iowa 4-H Alumni & Friends

From State Fair Queen to baby food producer, our December Alum of the Month has used the skills gained from her 4-H experience to propel herself to success. Julie (Wolterman) Burroughs was a member of the Garfield All-Stars 4-H Club for nine years in Ida County. Some of her projects included; showing cattle, quilting, knitting, woodworking, child development and much more. She also participated in Clothing Selection, Fashion Revue and 4-H Council.  Julie’s favorite 4-H memory was when she was crowned the 1993 Iowa State Fair Queen.  “The competition was such a valuable experience and my year as Queen, representing Iowa, was phenomenal,” said Burroughs. “The opportunity was such an honor and defined my 4-H experience.” Burroughs went on to coordinate the Iowa State Fair Queen Competition of 14 years. Another fond 4-H memory Burroughs has is showing livestock. “I loved the energy and sense of community on livestock show day. The entire Club worked together to get the cattle w

Award winning KCCI 8 News morning anchor, Eric Hanson is our November Alum of the Month. Hanson graduated from Roland-Story High School. He grew up on a farm with his parents and his three siblings, who were all involved in 4-H in Story County. “4-H is important to me because it strengthen my communications skills,” said Hanson. Hanson also says the 4-H taught him confidence, leadership and communication. He was an eight year member of the Howard Rockets and participated in swine, dog, rabbit, woodworking, rocketry, photography, communication, leadership and much more. Hanson’s favorite 4-H memory was during dog obedience class. “Dog obedience class was every Tuesday night in Ames,” said Hanson. “My 4-H leader picked me and my dog up, drove us to class with 100-ish others and we’d always go to Burger King afterwards, bonding as a group.” Hanson also met First Lady Barbara Bush in 1991 at Living History Farms and gave her a one on one presentation about tractor safety. After hig

Livestock. Friends. Family. Memories. These are just a few things that come to mind when Mary (Kaiser) Veatch thinks back to when she was a 4-H’er. Mary was a 10-year 4-H member of the Monroe Happy Hustler 4-H Club and a four year Benton County Council Member.  After graduating from Union High School, Mary did not run away from 4-H, she was the Benton County Summer Intern for three years (2000-2002) and the State 4-H Summer Intern- Livestock (2003-2004). In December, Mary will celebrate her tenth year as the Iowa County Youth Coordinator. Along with her siblings; older sister Katie, twin sister Carrie and younger brother Mark, Mary participated mainly in the Swine project area.  The whole Kaiser Family could be seen showing hogs at the local, state and national levels.  “Every show we attended, my parents had a standard that we were encouraged to speak to industry leaders and meet new friends. On our trip back home, we had to share who we met and what we learned after the show

Allison (Howard County) and Bryan (Tama County) Whaley can credit their marriage to 4-H. National 4-H Congress brought the two together where they met for the first time and never looked back. They continue to be very involved with 4-H in many ways as they now have two children who are in the program and Bryan also serves as the Regional Director for ISU Extension and Outreach. In addition to volunteering, the Whaley's continue to financially support National Congress so that others can get the experience that they got. It is clear that 4-H has impacted their lives and remains a very important part. While in 4-H, Bryan was a State 4-H Officer on the 1991-92 State 4-H Council and Allison was a member of the 1992-93 State 4-H Council. Bryan’s main projects were sheep, beef, swine, animal science, welding, food and nutrition, and child development. Allison was active in several project areas including horse, dog, communications, veterinary science, food and nutrition, home improv

Passionate is a word that describes our July Alum of the Month, Marji Guyler-Alaniz, perfectly.   Marji has dedicated herself to making a difference in the agriculture industry. She has her own business called FarmHer where she focuses on women in agriculture. She photographs women farmers and ranchers and shares the images in an effort to update the image of agriculture. She wants to show women to the world through her beautiful images of them at work. “My goal is to capture the beauty in the everyday and my style is to show who these women are through subtleties. Subtleties that show these are women and portray that they are agriculture. Too often in our world, the beauty of a woman; of an image, is judged by a face. These are beautiful women, doing beautiful work and my goal is to bring an appreciation to what they do,” Guyler-Alaniz said. She also sells FarmHer and RanchHer merchandise both online and at various events and fairs. She speaks about FarmHer and shares the

Chuck Paulsen is our June Alum of the Month. Paulsen is an Agricultural and Commercial Loan Officer at Bank Iowa in Cedar Falls. He is a trustee for the Iowa 4-H Foundation and is actively involved with the marketing committee. He is an avid Black Hawk County 4-H mentor and volunteer. Paulsen spent fifteen years on the Black Hawk County Fair board and served as Superintendent of livestock judging contests. He was a nine-year member of the Cedar Falls Hustler 4-H Club and served on the Black Hawk County 4-H Council during his youth years. The projects and activities that Paulsen was involved in while in 4-H included sheep, horses, beef, home improvement, gardening, sewing, fashion review, horticulture, and county council. “4-H has shaped most of my adult life. From my choice of Animal Science as a college major to being very actively involved as an adult volunteer. In some way, I can confidently say it somehow affects most all aspects of my life. You don’t realize as a youth ho

Our 4-H alumna of the month, Cheryl (King) Pence, was a 4-H member in Hardin County. She attributes her good public speaking skills to having to get up in front of other kids in her club to do a talk and a demonstration. “Getting up in front of the other members was terrifying at first, but the members made me feel right at ease,” said Pence who believes that her early training made her feel more comfortable with public speaking today. When Cheryl was a 4-Her, there were girls 4-H clubs and boys 4-H clubs. In girls club, she took part in sewing, cooking, and home improvement. One time she even represented her club at the county level as Best Groomed Girl, which is similar to today’s clothing events. She showed beef in the boys clubs which she loved immensely. “I had many first place winners, and in my last year of   4-H, I had the Grand Champion steer. What an honor! ” said Pence. Through these projects she learned the hard work it takes to care for animals, s

This summer we will be welcoming 1,100 4-H’ers back to camp where they will have the opportunity to explore, have fun, be creative, and learn! Before the first group of campers arrive, we must raise $15,000, through our new campaign “Beds for Heads,” in order to purchase new bunk beds for Oak Lodge. We are excited to use Oak Lodge this year because that means more campers! Each set of wood, steel reinforced bunks costs $1,000 and includes mattresses, ladders, and safety rails. We're asking camp supporters to help us reach this goal and secure these beds for our campers' heads! In order to reach our goal we have a special way of fundraising. Each week, Iowa State University Collegiate 4-H and Alumni volunteers make calls to donors to raise funds to support the efforts of the Iowa 4-H Foundation. This on-going fundraising effort raises vital dollars to support programs and opportunities for Iowa's 4-H’ers."It is a great way for me to give back. As a 4-H alum from

Proud. That is how our April Alum of the Month, Renae Drey, describes herself when talking about 4-H. Renae is a proud first generation 4-H member and volunteer.  She was involved in County 4-H programs, State 4-H Council, State 4-H Conference, National 4-H Conference, and National 4-H Congress. “All of these experiences have given me the opportunities I could have never imagined possible,” Renae said. Renae started 4-H to try new things because she always asked herself, “Why not?” At first, Renae took on many different projects but ended up narrowing down to four of her strongest areas, Citizenship, Leadership, Communications, and Consumer Management. She earned a State 4-H project award for three of her four project areas.  In seventh grade, Renae completed her first citizenship project, by leading her 4-H club in making fleece blankets for a local nonprofit organization. After that first project, Renae’s passion for leading was ignited. During her freshman year of high