Sunrise Creek Farm

SUNRISE CREEK 4-H CLUB

After a long history with 4-H, our club is no longer active.  The boys' diversified interests required that we turn our attention and energies elsewhere as they continued to grow and progress in their educational and skill development.  On occassion, they still step in and help out as well as instruct members in showmanship of small livestock. 

Charlie and CJ still help out on occassion with members that are working on their record books, but their favorite way of helping out is to work hands-on with teaching showmanship skills to youth members in the poultry and rabbit divisions.

CJ is a past chicken showing champion and really enjoys working with the younger members in getting them off to a great start.  This little girl went from learning how to securely hold her bird to winning herself a position in the Master Showman Class!

Charles enjoys teaching rabbit showmanship.  He has done this for the last couple of years so many of his students are repeat students. 

When it appeared that the poultry showmanship judge was not going to arrive, Charlie was honored when asked to judge.  Here he is judging the first junior competitor, Kamerin Ewart.  Kamerin did a fabulous job with his turkey and earned himself a blue ribbon!

Originally this club consisted of my husband and myself as the leaders, and our three boys as our only members.  This worked great for me because I realized my limitations early on when it came to running a large club while trying take on the responsibilities of a committee officer.  My past positions in the 4-H program have been Co-Leader of the Lazy Mountain Riding Club, Treasurer of Mat-Su 4-H Horse Council and more recently, the Vice President of the Mat-Su Volunteer Leaders Association. 

Above is a rare occurance...a picture of me!  I am always behind the camera.

But enough about me.  It is the kids that are truely exciting.  Over the years they have completed projects in Horse, Goat, Rabbit, Poultry, Cavy, Veterinary Science, Public Speaking, Computer Technology, Woodworking, Electronics, Gardening, Photography, Crafts, Sewing, and Culinary Arts!  Edward has since grown out of his youth membership status and is now a resource leader.  His younger brothers, Charles and C.J., have been our only members for the last two years.  This changed this year with the addition of David Hecker, Kelsey Hecker, Lucas Bartel, and Sydnee Houseman.  We will now be operating again with a full club!

Here are a few pictures of the Sunrise Creek 4-H Club with their projects:

CJ, Charlie, and David did a wonderful job of filling the Salvation Army's donation pot that brought Christmas cheer to someone's holiday season!

Charlie assisted Melody Ealy in judging the 4-H Baking Contest that was held at the Pioneer Home in Palmer this year.

CJ entered the baking contest in three different categories.  It was his lucky day...he won grand champion in all three.

Kelsey and Shalimar.

Lucas and David prep a kid for disdbudding.  Rachel Hecker, our market project leader, taught all the members how to disbud and turn bucklings to whethers on this sunny March day.

This is a nice picture of past, present, and future of 4-H.  April Wright is the tall blond gal to the far left that is assisting the Judges this summer while she is working her way towards being a licensed judge herself.  She graduated from 4-H not too long ago.  Second from the right is Charles.  He is currently in 4-H and is scribing for the judge.

Our most recent 4-H Roundup and Fun Night was held on October 6, 2007.  Our club brought their project display board and played agricultural related games at their table.   Here they are teaching others to play "Pit", a commodities game.

On July 19, 2008 Sunrise Creek hosted the Wasilla Wheekers Whacky Weekend.  We had a blast.  The afternoon was kicked off with a showmanship contest for all small livestock.  This was followed by lunch, horse shoes, badmitton, and an exciting round of hill-billy golf on the Sunrise Creek Redneck Nine Course.  Believe it or not, we experienced the first sunny afternoon in three weeks.  (Very rainy summer!)

Here Kelsey Hecker is drilled with Cavy questions by Samantha Marlin as some of the members from both clubs watch and wait for their turn to display their knowlege and talent.

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