‘Maverick’ Feldman looks back on 4-H journey

Lynn Feldman always wanted to be part of 4-H. She wasn’t able to participate during her own youth but was determined to ensure things would be different for her son, who was eligible to join Cloverbuds, the organization’s entry level, when he turned 5 in 1989.

Some thirty-five years later, Feldman was recently inducted into the 4-H Fall of Fame.

“I started out as 4-H want-to-be,” Feldman said. “I grew up in Rock County and Rock County had the largest 4-H fair in the United States at the time.” 

The fair was only a few blocks from Feldman’s childhood home, and her father was a vendor there. She said she loved going to the fair, seeing the vendors and looking at the crafts people had made. 

She also had friends who were in 4-H.

“I couldn’t belong to it,” Feldman said. “And that was another thing, is that I couldn’t belong to it because there was only one Janesville club.” 

Kids had to join the club  in the township where they lived. Because Feldman had band the same night as the Janesville club held its 4-H meetings, she was never able to be in 4-H. 

However, her mother would take her to the technical college when there were adult classes on everything from crafting to wood-working and she knew 4-H offered those same types of things.

By age 22, Feldman had moved to the Northwoods. She was highly involved in looking at all of the fairs in the area. One of the fairs she started looking at closely was the Minnesota State Fair. 

This year will mark her 45th year of attending that event. 

Feldman said her husband works for the fair and she has in the past as well. 

“My husband works at the fair. I worked at the fair. I volunteer at the fair,” she said. “Our kids have worked at the fair. Our son owns a house six blocks from the Minnesota State Fair. So, we are fair people. And 4-H is definitely a part of the fair.” Over the years, she said she’s  been able to take some of the best ideas she’s seen at the Minnesota State Fair and implement them here.

In 1989, when her son turned five, she looked at Extension to see what 4-H programming was available. There was nothing that would work for her son, as programming was limited at that time. She quickly realized she would have to strike out on her own and create something that would work for her son and other kids his age. She knew what 4-H could do for kids and wanted it to be a part of her childrens’ lives.

Feldman when to the Extension office and soon started a club. By pure luck, another woman, Linda Houghton, had recently relocated to Lake Tomahawk from Illinois.

Houghton had been very involved with the county fair in Illinois and wanted to continue that work.

“She wanted a county fair because we hadn’t had an active county fair,” Feldman said. “According to the state, the couple of horse clubs that were here, they would hold a horse competition each year, and that constituted the fair for state purposes, and that’s important because we wouldn’t have a fair right now if it wasn’t for those horse clubs back in the ‘70s and early ‘80s.” 

According to the state, if a county does not hold continual fairs, they cannot just start one up. The county sold the fairgrounds in the early 1970s. From then until 1989, the horse competition constituted the fair, so when Feldman was a first-year leader in 4-H, her group of 14 kids had a fair in Lake Tomahawk. There was a horse show and also exhibits at the American Legion. Her 4-H club had an entry.

Within two years, her club grew to 48 members and there was another club that had started up in the county. The fair moved into the Sloan Community Building in Lake Tomahawk and even included rides. 

“What I remember, and I still can’t believe that they did this, they actually closed down Highway 47 for a couple of blocks in Lake Tomahawk,” Feldman recalled. “It was the street that had the rides on it.”

By the third year, both clubs had grown. Feldman’s club had 75 kids and the other club had close to 50. Both of those were Rhinelander-based clubs. There were also a couple of horse clubs as well as a club in Lake Tomahawk and Starks. Shortly thereafter the Sugar Camp club was founded.

After three years in Lake Tomahawk, the owners of the Country Fest grounds approached Houghton to ask if she would like to relocate the fair to their property. After the move there, a demolition derby was added to the fair lineup.

Also, the sheriff at the time, Charlie Crowfoot, had llamas and his wife was getting into educating people on llamas, Feldman noted.

Denny Hastreiter started a livestock association around that time as well and got a group together to pay for a livestock building. 

That building was turned over to the property owners when the fair pulled out in 2009, Feldman said. 

By that time, the fair featured many different species of animals on display for judging.

Feldman was a member of the Leaders Association from the beginning. While there was a part-time Extension person in Minocqua at the time, she was not actively recruiting people in the realm of 4-H. 

In 1992, the state decided to create a full time educator position in Oneida County, which also helped 4-H to grow.

Many different things came together at the same time. At one time, Feldman said, there were 30 different projects underway in her club under the direction of 30 different leaders.

“But it was at a time where I could recruit leaders and people could hold things at their homes,” Feldman said, noting that her son spent many years going to woodworking classes that were held in the home of one of the leaders. Now, however, with risk management training and insurance laws in place, that is no longer a viable option.

“We were mavericks at the time,” she said. “And you could be a maverick.” It was easier to build the program at that time, she explained.

By the year 2000, there were 250 kids involved. There was also a talent show, created by Feldman’s daughter as her senior project in 2003.

By 2005, Feldman went back to school for her master’s degree. With that, added to the work of owning a grocery store in Three Lakes with her husband, and the fact that both of her children were grown and no longer in 4-H, she stepped back from the program. 

The Feldmans eventually sold their business and she went to work for Tri-County Council on Domestic Violence.

By 2009, the fair had moved to Pioneer Park. Feldman started helping out a bit, and in 2013, she took the educator position at UW-Extension. 

She held that position for five years.

“In 2013, the county was going to do away with the 4-H program,” she said. “In fact, they did vote to do away with it at the county board meeting.” 

Feldman went to a citizen’s group from Extension talking about the positives of 4-H. She called each board member and built up the fact that there were other youth programs involved. By the time the job opened up in 2013, Feldman had her master’s degree, which was required for the position, and knew the position would be a perfect fit for her. 

She started out with 48 kids that were still in the 4-H program. By the time she left in 2018, there were 108 kids involved in 4-H. 

Feldman also ran the teen court, was part of the AODA coalition, did workforce readiness training and grew a club in Three Lakes and another in Minocqua. She also worked with the diversity club at Rhinelander High School and worked with Partners in Education. Now the position is half 4-H and half youth development.

Feldman is still involved in 4-H. She is president of the leader’s association and helps out with many things in the county related to the world of 4-H.

“Anne Williams is the one who submitted my name (for the Hall of Fame),” Feldman said. “I just thought — there are a lot of people who are far more qualified than me who have done stuff. I mean, who have lead things for years and have grown their clubs.”

The thing that was different in Oneida County was that she was able to keep a program going that likely would not otherwise be here. 

She said it was nothing short of a miracle that the county decided to keep 4-H. 

The organization remains her passion because she has seen what being a 4-H club member does for kids and how it follows them through their entire lives. 

For several years, Feldman took club members to the Wisconsin State Fair. She took a dance troupe down as well, which consisted of 14 kids, half of which were boys.

“On the day of the performance, every single one of those 14 kids had a parent who was down there,” she said. “That’s what we had. We had parent involvement, parents who saw what this was doing for kids. And both of my kids are in careers that are directly related to their time in 4-H.” 

And 4-H is not just for the kids, she noted.. Parents and leaders both grow while working with the clubs. She and both of her children have reconnected with other kids and leaders who participated  in the club back when her children were young.

“Everything that 4-H did, we were into,” Feldman said. “This definitely wasn’t the normal program, but our hearts were in it. My heart’s still into it.” 

She is still working full-time, so finding time for 4-H activities can be difficult, and finding a location can be a challenge as well. 

While she’s not sure where 4-H is headed in the future, she noted the organization has continually evolved  with the times. 

Things such as astronomy and Lego (R) challenges have come along to provide the types of activities and programming that interest kids today. 4-H programming has always been dictated by the interests of the kids. Whatever kids are interested in, the program looks for leaders to teach, she explained. All of these things go back to the basic tenets of 4-H, which are a sense of independence, mastery, or hands-on learning, sense of belonging and giving back to the community. 

Another difference with 4-H versus other kids’ clubs and activities is that boys and girls work together in programs, and each project or activity involves children of different ages. While kids may be divided into levels in projects, when the club gets together as a whole, older kids help younger kids and everyone works together. 4-H is also free to join. If there is a project that needs supplies a child cannot afford, the Leaders’ Association steps in to help with some of those needs, Feldman explained.

4-H also provides face-to-face contact, which kids need, Feldman noted. The pandemic caused kids to become more isolated, and some have tended to stay that way. Parents and kids are less likely to get involved in face-to-face interactions with even the youngest kids having more anxiety about talking to other kids their age. Instead, people, even adults, turn to technology more than they turn to each other in person, which people need, Feldman said.

This, too, will likely continue to be a factor in programs such as 4-H. Generationally, she said, people are not participating as much in the hands-on type of activities as they have in the past. 

What Feldman has noticed is that if a kid has a “buddy” in 4-H, they are more apt to get involved. This, in turn, increases their confidence and improves their mental health in the process of having fun. 

The goal of participation in 4-H is not necessarily to win a ribbon at the fair, Feldman said, but to “make your best better.”

She said she would encourage students and adults, to get involved in 4-H, because everyone grows in the program, not just the children. 

Without her involvement in 4-H, she would have never have gone back to school for her master’s degree, and she would not have been an Extension agent, she noted, adding that she will always be a big proponent of the organization.

Beckie Gaskill may be reached via email at [email protected].