2003 4-H Wildlife Judging National Champions

(Above: Members of the 2003 4-H Wildlife Judging National Championship Team, left to right, Coach Jan Greene, Traci Beams, Lisa Shaw, Amy Farnsworth, Lisa Greene, and Coach Wayne Ford.)

Auburn, August 4, 2003 --- Three members of the 2002 National 4-H Forestry Judging Team were wearing new hats as members of the Alabama 4-H Wildlife Judging Team left New Mexico last month sporting freshly won feathers in those hats.

In one of the closest competitions on record, the team members – Lisa Shaw, Kate Greene, and Amy Farnsworth and newcomer Traci Beams – squeaked past Virginia with only a fraction of a point to win the 2003 4-H Wildlife Habitat Invitational, held in Las Cruces, N.M.

Along with Alabama and Virginia, the other top 10 states included Georgia, Texas, Tennessee, Colorado, Oklahoma, Idaho, Missouri and Pennsylvania.

Adding even more luster to the championship was the fact that all four team members – Beams, Shaw, Farnsworth and Greene respectively – posted the top four individual scores but with only a half-point difference among them, according to team coach Wayne Ford, Tuscaloosa County Extension coordinator

Longtime 4-H volunteer Jan Greene also assisted with coaching.

To compete in the National 4-H wildlife habitat evaluation, team members must learn how to manage a habitat for various wildlife species. They also must evaluate a habitat based on aerial photographs and provide an oral defense of this evaluation.

They are also required to write rural and urban management plans to serve the needs of various wildlife species.

If this isn’t challenging enough, team members must also learn how to manage animals native to the region in which the national competition is held. This year, the four team members endured the sweltering heat of a New Mexico desert long enough to receive a crash course in management of various species not native to Alabama, such as mule deer, desert cottontail rabbits, Gambel’s quails and white-wing doves.

This marks the seventh time Ford has accompanied teams to wildlife judging national competition. And he has much to show for the effort – four national championships and two reserve championships. In five of those events, he has also coached the competition’s top scorer.

Ford also has coached seven 4-H forestry judging national championship teams.

(Source: Wayne Ford, Tuscaloosa County Extension Coordinator, 205-349-4630.)

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