Another Feather in Their Caps

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.)