History

Prairie 4-H Club is one of the oldest clubs in Crawford County. It was formed in 1949 with Leonard Blackwell as the Community Leader and Eva Stewart as the Assistant Club Leader. Howard Breuer holds the honor of being the first Club President. Since that time hundreds of members have benefited from their affiliation with the club.

In the years before her death, Eva Stewart would often comment that the club had initially been formed to give the children in the community something to do, but in more recent years our youth are so involved with other activities that we sometimes have to “work in 4-H.”

When the club was first formed projects were more farm and home-life related (i.e. cattle, hogs, crops, cooking and sewing) while today our members are involved in many different projects (i.e. computers, photography, shooting sports, leadership, arts and crafts) as well as those original projects.

We also find time every year to do community service projects, such as trash pick-up along a portion of Highway F and decorating the Catholic Cemetery fence with an evergreen swag at Christmas.

One of our main focuses during the year has always been the Crawford County Fair. This is where our members have always learned to become the “Prairie Family,” rather than just a Club of disjointed participants. The comraderie, teamwork, and true friendships formed are attributes and memories our members carry with them for a lifetime. It is heartwarming to watch the older members guide and help the younger members---and we all revel in any accomplishment by one of our members.

Our club has had many different meeting places over the years. A few of these have included: the Lamb place, Leslie Licklider's "little" house, Ervin & Jean Stubblefield's home, Alan & Toni Bailey's home, the old Jake's Prairie store building, as well as meeting in the homes of 4-H members. We now meet in the church basement at Trinity Presbyterian Chapel.

We have had many second-generation families in our club. In our Clover Kids Club we also now have our first third-generation members. Our first third-generation family member tree was Dave Campbell, Christy Campbell and Dakota Skouby. This year we also have the third generation tree of Dave Campbell, Heather Campbell Portell and Hayley Portell, as well as Sandy Stewart, Amber Stewart and Alexis Price. We are very proud of this, as it represents the life-long friendships and family feeling that we have always been blessed with in our club.

Sandy Stewart has been the Community Leader for approximately the past ten years. She served as Assistant Leader to the club for many years prior to taking over as Community Leader after her mother, Eva Stewart, became ill and was unable to continue in this capacity.

Page last updated January 6, 2008