With the Warren County Fair only days away, 4-Hers across the county are preparing for the culmination of all their efforts in their projects, exhibits and demonstrations. For many, these projects are the product of generations of involvement with 4-H programs. 

Denise Dent and her husband Travis were born in Warren County and joined 4-H when she was eight years old with her mom as her club leader. 

Now she serves that role for her daughters Kinze, 13, and Madison, 18, with the Prairie View 4-H Club. Dent said her involvement with 4-H as a child had a significant impact on her life, an impact she wanted to pass on to her daughters. 

“One of the things I’ve learned is just, find what you love,” said Dent. “So in 4-H, you have so many different projects, and if you find what you love, you could maybe work at that one day.”

Along with her role as club leader, Dent also served on the Warren County 4-H Council for nine years before stepping away in 2024. 

For Donna Sherman, her connection to 4-H started all the way back in the 1950s when her mother, Joyce Dothage, joined the Jaybirds 4-H Club in Marthasville. When Sherman was old enough, her mother made sure she joined as well with her sister Diane Miederhoff in the Camp Ranch 4-H Club. 

She also had her daughters Dana, 26, and Dawn, 22, join the same programs she learned in as a child. While they have aged out of 4-H, she now spends time with her niece, Emma Miederhoff, 11, as she prepares her projects for the fair with the Elkhorn 4-H Club. 

“I would say that 4-H just kind of made me who I am,” said Sherman. “Because I was kind of interested in child development, and I went on to become a teacher, so I kind of had that experience.”

She said she involved her daughters in the same programs because she saw the value they had in creating well-rounded individuals as well as building social skills and learning to cooperate. 

When Kinze Dent heads to the Warren County Fairgrounds next week, she will be focused on preparing to show her two steers, Pedro and Charlie, but those are not the only projects she intends to complete. 

She will also have projects in sport fishing, shotgun shooting, canning and she will follow in her mother’s footsteps with a project in floriculture. 

“It’s not just about the looks and what you look like in the show ring, it’s about all the work you put into it,” said Kinze Dent. 

The 13-year-old has been preparing, washing her two cows once a week. Soon she will take them to get haircuts to make sure they are ready for the shows. 

She said she is always a little nervous about showing her steers when the fair first gets started but once she gets to the livestock auction she usually feels pretty comfortable. 

While Emma Miederhoff shows goats, she is also preparing projects in cooking, food safety and scrapbooking. 

4-H often gets stereotyped as a farming program but there are so many other options for participants to find their lane. 

Emma Miederhoff, who also serves as her club’s president, has had plenty of opportunities to learn cooking skills prior to the fair as well, including doing an Italian night with her club. At the fair however, she is preparing a coffee cake for one of her projects and an exhibit on food safety. 

For her exhibit, she has used toys and household items to create a “worst-case” scenario kitchen. 

While explaining her exhibit she points out all the items that could pose a safety risk, including an open oven door, an oven mitt on the stove, a sink full of dishes and a knife blade hanging off the counter. 

Sherman pointed to the exhibit as another way 4-H programs can help to teach kids about topics that will be useful throughout their lives. 

“It’s just always trying to come up with some way to show a life skill, because cooking is a life skill, being safe in the kitchen is a life skill,” said Sherman. 

All of the parents saw both their kids and their own involvement in 4-H as a way to build a sense of responsibility as well as broaden their horizons. 

“Having multiple generations shows that it was important for parents to pass these experiences on to their kids,” said Maureen Michel, youth program associate with the Warren County MU Extension office. 

As the Warren County Fair approaches, the fruits of all that labor are about to become reality and then the cycle will repeat again. 

“When you grow up and become a mom, you want to get your kids involved in something, so you’ll put yourself back in 4-H, because you are surrounded by individuals that have the same common purpose,” Sherman said. “They all want the kids to become the best that they can become and have that lifelong learning.”