Clay County Wins State 4-H Forestry Competition

A team of Clay County 4-H'ers won the State 4-H Forestry Judging Contest held recently in Alexander City. The team will represent Alabama at the national competition in July.

In addition to winning the overall state team title, the team is composed of twins Robert and Steven Franklin, their brother Adam Franklin and Will Denson. In the Overall High Individual contest, Steven Franklin won first place. Adam Franklin took third place, and Robert Franklin placed fifth. The team not only won the state contest overall, but were first in five of the component events including forest evaluation, tree measurement and tree identification.

Pictured are coach W.N McCollum, Steven Franklin, Robert Franklin, Will Denson, Adam Franklin and coach Marie Gasser.

Marsha Moorehead, Clay County coordinator for the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, says this group has been working together since 2005.

“In the last few years, they have really studied hard and expanded their knowledge of forestry,” she says. “They made progress at each annual contest, and their hard work shone through this year by winning first place.”

Moorehead adds the team has been coached for the last four years by a team of volunteers. Jim and Marie Gasser, Norphlet McCollum and Earl Smith have worked with the 4-H Forestry Judging program in Clay County for a number of years.

“These four adults have given a lot of time to our 4-H forestry program,” says Moorehead. “Volunteer leaders bring so much to the program with their real life experiences. Our team could not have accomplished what they did without these dedicated coaches.”

In addition to the volunteer leaders, Andy Baril, a regional Extension forestry and wildlife sciences agent also worked with the Clay County team.

The national contest will be July 20-24 at Jackson’s Mill State 4-H Conference Center in West Virginia. Alabama teams have won the national competition 15 times since 1984, including 10 times in the last 13 years.

Posted by lawremc at July 10, 2008 03:48 PM | TrackBack