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What happened to 4-H fair coverage?

I have always enjoyed the local Hill County fair, now known as the Great Northern Fair, especially when I was a child and involved in 4-H. Now that I am grown up, I still enjoy watching my nieces and nephews with their 4-H projects. This is why I am so disappointed and saddened by your lack of coverage of the recent 4-H doings at the fair.

You showed pictures of the derby and gave the results; you gave the results of the Junior Rodeo and the NRA Rodeo. The only 4-H coverage you did was the horse judging, which you missed some photos of the winners. Plus, you covered the pig wrestling and the benefit concert for the 4-H Chuckwagon.

What about the results from the beef, pig, sheep and goat judging, plus all of the small animals, such as dog, cat, chicken and rabbit?

I was out of town for the fair this year. I couldn't wait to get home to see who had won what. Nothing! I waited all last week and this week. No mention of who bought what and how much the animals sold for.

To me, 4-H is a very big part of this fair. To not see or read any results is very disappointing. If you didn't have the information, I'm sure you could have obtained it from the Hill County Extension Office.

Hope the coverage is better next year!

Lois Leeds

Havre

Editor's note: The Havre Daily News for years has run a full page of 4-H activities daily during the Great Northern Fair. In discussions with Lea Ann Larson, the 4-H agent, we agreed to do so again this year.

On the first day of the fair, as usual, 4-H sent photos and results which we included in the next day's paper.

On the second day, I came into the office early to prepare that day's page. We received nothing by email.

I sent an email and left a voice mail message questioning where the material was. I got no response. We had to scramble to find something else to fill the full page we had set aside.

The same thing happened again the next day.

Over the weekend, I went to the Bigger Better Barn in hopes of finding LeaAnn to find out if they planned on sending us anything for the Monday and Tuesday papers. I couldn't find her but left messages for her to call me. No response.

After the fair, I talked to her. She said the material had been sent. I said for whatever reason, we did not receive it.

I asked her to resend the material since they must already have it on file. She said she would get back to me. No word yet.

The Havre Daily News wants very much to recognize the young people who were honored during the fair. We have done many stories about 4-H, its successes and its building program over the years and hope to continue. We ran an 800-word advance on 4-H activities prior to the fair. We did stories on the effort to raise money for a new Chuckwagon and the donation from Town Pump for the Chuckwagon. I've asked LeaAnn to call us when they are having programs throughout the year.

We hope 4-H will resend the materials so we can run the stories on the fair.

John Kelleher

Managing editor

Havre Daily News

 
 

Reader Comments(4)

Momofone writes:

The 4H Extension Office drops the ball again!

motheroffour writes:

I have 4-H children and when nothing appeared in the paper I questioned this as well, I can say with confidence that this lack of coverage was not he papers fault... In all the years I have been involved it he information has always been forwarded to the newspaper, this error if you want to call it that should fall with the extension office and the agents.

Slickyboyboo writes:

I doubt if this will get printed, but this Havre paper is getting to be quite a joke and as soon as my canary dies I'll not need to be buying it anymore. Seems like they are pretty selective of what they print including these comments if they comply with the rules but someone at the paper doesn't like them then they get deleted. They probably can't afford to have someone go to the fairgrounds to get the story on the 4-H dealings and winners. Oh well at least they are saving a tree or two.

holdonaminute writes:

I was up there 12+ hours a day with my 4-H children EVERY day of the fair. I did not see once the HDN photographer anywhere. When Nicki was your photographer she was up there all the time, wondering around talking to the kids and taking fun/action shots. Where were those, HDN? The extension office has 3 employees, and when 2 of them are up there 8-10 hours a day, what do you expect... Yes, bummer on the extension office for not getting back to you, but bummer to HDN too.

 
 
 
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