Mac Coughlin, who is in his 80s, became a 4-H member in 1941.
“It was serious business back then,” he said.
It was the Department of Agriculture’s way of educating young people and helping them learn new farm practices, he said.
“Today, it’s become like a hobby,” Mr. Coughlin said.
However, that’s not to say it’s not beneficial, he added.
When he joined, it was known as the Boys and Girls Club. It was in the 50s when it changed to its current name of 4-H.
The clubs back then were necessary to farm children, he said. First it was calf clubs, then market steers and draft horse clubs. When the tractors came in, draft horses were no longer needed, he explained.
In the calf club, you were responsible for that calf, which you most likely purchased, having to report what you fed it each day, how much it weighed and its height measurement, Mr. Coughlin said.
“Then, you had to send that to the Department of Agriculture each month,” he added.
As a matter of fact, one of the first things a 4-H member did in the calf club was to make a halter — it wasn’t possible to go to the store and buy one, Mr. Coughlin said.
Today, young people don’t even have to live on farms to be involved in the animal clubs, you can just borrow animals and take care of them during meetings, he said. It’s more lenient to be involved in 4-H today.
However, he stressed, it was for practical reasons you were in a club, not because you wanted to just have fun.
“Lots of herds were established from calf clubs,” Mr. Coughlin said. “They were the (beginning) of many herds.”
But, 4-H has changed with the times, Mr. Coughlin said. It’s not used as much for education as it once was. While the young people do learn, the rules have changed over the years, he said.
“In my time, it was a lot more serious,” he said.
When Mr. Coughlin began 4-H, he was in the swine club and when many farmers got out of the pork business in the 50s he did as well and began milking in the 60s. His son Kevin now works the family dairy farm on the Zion Line.
