Yancey County Extension Center
James Edward Magner, III
County Extension Director
April 26th Linda Semon and I traveled to Raleigh to watch Yancey County’s own Jim Parlier receive the Governor’s Medallion Award. The Governor’s Medallion Award is presented annually to the state’s top twenty volunteers. Jim was recognized for the many years he has donated to Yancey Extension and 4-H.
A $2000 grant has been submitted to WNC for scholarships for children from Bee Log and Bald Creek to the 4-H Summer program. A $4000 dollar request was made to the Yancey County United Fund to support the 4-H Green Team. These funds would be awarded to help offset the cost of participating in state wide 4-H events and judging contests.
In order to get financial help 4-Hers and their parents can volunteer their time to help community projects. The Green Team has already helped at the community Garden and helped to clean up Ray Cort Park, and at the United Fund Event. To date the group has about 20 members and have donated over 40 hours, and counting.
Smithson Mills will be submitting a $50,000 proposal for a Specialty Crop Block Grant Program from the Farm Bill. The grant will be requesting known equipment a Yancey Ag Center would need, such as walking coolers, freezers, a wash line, etc.
The Yancey County 4-H Horse Judging Team (seven young ladies coached by volunteer Emily Banks) joined the FFA High School Horse Judging team and both teams did exceptionally well and as individuals. There were over 320 students competing from across the state.
Agriculture & Natural Resources
Stanley Holloway, Agriculture Agent
Spring is here as is evident in the increase in calls and office visits for agricultural related information and assistance. Early in the month the Agricultural Staff conducted Cooperative Extension’s Annual Plant Sale. This year we offered a wide variety of plant material and fruit varieties for sale to local residents. By combining orders with surrounding counties, we were able to getdiscounted bulk quantity prices and offer the plants material at a reduced price to our clientele. In total, 1050 blueberry plants, over 17,000 strawberry plants, 600 blackberry plants, 550 black raspberry plants, 500 red raspberry plants, 1000 asparagus crowns, 40 horseradish roots, 80 pear trees, and 425 apple trees were purchased by over 325 local residents. In conjunction with the annual plant sale, Extension staff provided detailed information regarding planting and care of the plant material purchased. Following the plant sale, Extension staff offered 4 educational workshops, 2 Strawberry and Blueberry Production workshops and 2 Bramble and Grape Production Workshops. The workshops were well attended with 19 participating in the Strawberry and Blueberry workshops and 12 in the Bramble and Grape workshops. The participants received detailed up-to-date production and pest management information and post workshop evaluations indicated that all participants gained knowledge and would use the knowledge gained to enhance their production systems.
The Yancey County Cooperative Extension is still working towards the development and implementation of a local grown agricultural products aggregation and distribution center. A public meeting was held where Mr. Smithson Mills provided an update on the progress of our feasibility study for such a center. At this point in the process, a location to house the facility is needed before we can move further on the endeavor. Several options are being pursued and it is our hope that something will be in line soon to proceed forward.
The ToeCane Beekeeper’s monthly educational meeting was held with 30 local beekeepers attending discussing packaged bee installation.
Fifteen (15) field visits were conducted during the month on a variety of topics including: soil testing (3), fruit production (3), tobacco (2), general home landscape (3), livestock (2), and home gardening (2). In addition, over 75 office visits and numerous telephone and e-mail consultations were conducted during the month regarding a wide variety of agricultural topics.
Agriculture & Natural Resources
Adam McCurry, NC A&T Agriculture Technician
The annual plant sale was our kick off for April and the farming season. We have had a lot of people come in or call with questions ranging from home gardens to larger commercial production. I have made several farm visits and helped with planning for this year’s crop. This year’s plant sale was a success with approximately 300 people buying plants. This is a great way for us to meet and help folks. Stanley and I presented two workshops each on blueberry and strawberry production and grapes and brambles production. These workshops were attended by those who bought our plants and also by home growers in general. We are also continuing to work toward a localagricultural center that would assist local farmers in marketing their products. The interest in farming seems to increase each year and hopefully we can help make this year a success for local farmers.
Yancey 4-H Narratives
4-H AfterSchool:
Bald Creek Academy
Susie Hedrick, Glenna Taylor, 4-H Program Assistants
The afterschool program has continued into April with Mark Williams’ Karate lessons to help the students with their balance, self-control, and general physical well being. We have also had lessons on nutrition with Jo Simpson. The students have enjoyed making their own fruit parfait snack, jump rope competition, which is included in Mrs. Simpson’s nutrition program. Richard Chuvala continued his lessons on team building. The last part of April was dedicated to studying ways to conserve energy in our homes.
Bee Log Afterschool
Debra Erickson, Daniel Semon, 4-H Program Assistants
Bringing out the talent of our afterschool youth is our concentration for May. We are helping them overcome stage fright by having them practice daily in front of the group.
Jo Simpson, from EFNEP, taught the students how to make healthy waffles with the use of fruit on top instead of syrup. They were very receptive to this idea and want to teach their families.
Life skills through crafts such as sewing by hand, stick art and building log cabins out of pretzels were well received by the students. We also showed them an experiment about water pollution and how they can help stop polluting. We visited the school pond often to watch how tadpoles develop. On good weather days we were outside exercising by playing games or on bad weather days, in the gym doing team building.
Rich Chuvala, Mtn. Challenge, does his program every Thursday with the older students. He teaches life skills by playing
Linda Semon did her Discovery Club curriculum, having the students craft flowerpots and identify seeds, which they took home to grow.
We have grown again after adding 2 more 5th graders. The students at Bee Log are a joy to work with.
4-H Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP)
Jo Simpson, 4-H Program Associate
Two hundred fifty-seven students from Burnsville Elementary K-3rd grades are receiving nutrition education through 4-H EFNEP this month. Research has shown children do not eat the recommended daily amounts of fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Through a series of six nutrition lessons youth EFNEP encourages students to try new foods and each week are given a challenge to eat at least one more fruit, vegetable or whole grain a day. Several students and some parents have shared they are trying to eat more vegetables and whole grains. Making healthier changes a little at a time make for good eating habits later on in life.
Youth EFNEP had a MyPyramid display at Childfest and also challenged children to a game of catch using beanbag fruits and vegetables. The children loved them and I had a great time playing with them, too. I also plan to attend and help with the Healthy Yancey Spring Gathering scheduled for later this month.
Plans are underway for this summer’s 4-H cooking camp “An Awesome Adventure to Our Past with Cooking to Arts”. Youth will cook their own lunch each day and also learn about cooking and the mountain heritage of days of old. Dr Daniel Barron is scheduled to attend with a story hour and Mary Lou Wilson will take them back to the days of old timey music while using instruments made from kitchen tools. Youth will learn the art and history of basket weaving and Mark Williams will show them how farmers used horses for plows and give the campers carriage rides.
4-H School Enrichment
Sybil Chapman, 4-H Program Assistant
Sybil had an accident early in the month and is out of work.
4-H Discovery
Linda Semon, 4-H Program Associate
4-H Discovery Club members are wrapping up their club year and getting excited about summer. This month they have learned about animals on the farm. They made some cute finger puppets to entertain each other. Some clubs have had awards day and celebrated their accomplishments for this year. They are also looking forward to our 4-H Talent Show at the Town Center on May 19th.
The Yancey County Junior 4-H Horse Judging Team of seven students traveled with the FFA competitors from Mountain Heritage to Williamston, NC to compete at the State 4-H Horse Judging Contest on April 16th. It took weeks of intense learning for the participants to prepare for this event. We were very proud of the performance of all those involved. Thanks go to Emily Banks who volunteered as their 4-H Coach and for Chad Ayers & Tres Magner who helped coordinate everything.
I coordinated the West District 4-H Teen Retreat that was held at Camp Bob in Henderson County on April 1&2nd. There were 13 counties represented and 100 youth and 24 adults attended workshops, listened to great guest speakers, elected district officers and collected over 260 pounds of food for Manna Food Bank. It was a great event and twelve youth from Yancey County attended. Coy Tschudy helped run the event as a West District Officer and Joshua Black, a current 4-H State Council Officer was in attendance to help.
Mountain Challenge
Richard Chuvala, 4-H Program Assistant
The Mtn. Challenge Program has worked with 52 elementary, 24 middle and 10 high school youth during the month of April.
Mtn. Challenge reinforced the importance of making decisions and the rewards and consequences of the choices at the elementary and middle schools. Using the Values for Life Curriculum, students have been able to develop their decision-making skills.
At the high school we have continued to develop their teambuilding skills. They will have the opportunity in May to go to the Avery County ropes course to test their ability to work as a team. We have also visited Mars Hill College and Appalachian St. University to tour their campuses and to learn what it takes to get into college. We will be going to UNC-Asheville and Ab-Tech during May. Our students will be fully prepared to help make a decision about their lives after high school.
April also brought our district Teen Retreat and I was asked to once again present a teambuilding workshop. Fifty teens from throughout the western part of our state learned the importance of teamwork, communication and leadership skills. During our local schools spring break I took a group of 6 Latino teens down to Greenville, NC to attend a Latino Health Forum. The teens learned and discussed topics, ranging from eating healthy to teen pregnancy that typical Latino teens are facing in today’s world.
We are also working to develop our 4-H Green Team, which gives 4-Her’s the chance to earn scholarship money for various 4-H activities throughout the year. Our Green Team participants come to various volunteer projects and not only earn money for their 4-H activities but also give back to our local community. One of the Green Team projects I have focused on is the cleanup of Ray-Cort Park. Our participants are raking leaves, picking up trash and doing other various projects as needed to help make our park beautiful for the upcoming summer.
North Carolina State University and North Carolina A&T State University commit themselves to positive action to secure equal opportunity regardless of race, color, creed, national origin, religion, sex, age, or disability. In addition, the two Universities welcome all persons without regard to sexual orientation. North Carolina State University, North Carolina A&T State University, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and local governments cooperating.