My 4-H Story

As a kid in rural Alabama, you kinda got pushed to being in 4-H.  For me, it meant three years with some hand-fed calf, training 'Bob-1', 'Bob-2' and 'Bob-3' (I don't remember their names) to just walk with a halter, and not freak out dragging me down through some pasture.  Naturally, the key point in the fall of each year at the school....was the first meeting of 4-H with the county-guy. 

Oddly, this meant having to elect a president, VP, and notes-person.  To be honest, there had been this trend going on for several years where kids were tired of the fake-nature of 4-H, and this election business.  The president always went to some 9th-grade kid (it was an elementary school so that's as far as you could go), and the smart kid in the group ended up as the note-person.

So the morning came around the ninth grade year for me...where they were going to have the first meeting of the year.  There was a kid in our group who was fairly clever, and tired of the whole 4-H thing and discussed with me the idea of getting biggest dimwit of the 35-odd boys in this group....elected as President, and the less-than-talented kid in the group as the notes-guy. I agreed in full measure.  We discussed the two guys who need the votes, and left to meet up with approximately twenty of our associates.

As the hour came for the 4-H guy to come in and give us his thrilling hype for the year.....then the nominations came up and my associate made sure candidate 1 for President was nominated.  In 60 seconds, we had the necessary twenty-odd votes and the kid won.  I don't remember the kid's name....nor does it matter.  I think he was a bit overwhelmed and it was the greatest moment of his life.

The 4-H guy sensed what we'd done.  I don't think he'd ever seen this tactic before.  We repeated this with the notes-guy, and just picked average kid for the VP slot.

There was this brief private conversation at the end of the episode between the class-teacher (an asshole), and the 4-H guy.  I think there was some frustration put on the table.  It didn't go far.

At that point, I came to think about the idea of slanting an election.  You could do the same thing for governors, Senators, and even a President. At the youthful age of fourteen, it was one of those moments that you advanced in life.  My associate who came up with the idea?  He would be dead within five years.  The kid who advanced to President that year with the 4-H?  I've kinda wondered if this didn't jump-start his advancement in life....maybe taking him to a higher calling.

When you think about it.....we didn't need to get a true majority...thirty-five to forty-five percent of the vote was enough.  The rest would be accidental gains where some buddy went with the plan. 

That was the last real year for me with 4-H.