BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) – Recently, the Texas 4-H Program had a ribbon cutting for their new state headquarters on Texas A&M’s Rellis Campus. In this week’s From the Ground Up, we listen to comments from Texas leaders about the impact of the 4-H Program as we take a look at the new facility.
“4-H Congress, which was my first experience to visit our state capitol, was just an incredible opportunity for me to see government work firsthand and obviously had a profound impact on me,” Trent Ashby, the 9th District Texas State Representative, said.
Growing up in a small east Texas town, Ashby was involved in 4-H at an early age.
“4-H, looking back, it taught me so much about responsibility, perseverance, about discipline, the value of hard work lessons, of course, that just like have stayed with me throughout my entire life,” Ashby said.
Texas A&M Regent Kelley Sullivan Georgiades’ family has a long history with Texas 4-H.
“Back in the 1950s, my grandfather – and I’m from Galveston – my grandfather, John Harvey Sullivan, who as a child was an orphan, started the Galveston Island 4-H Club on the west end of Galveston Island and essentially he built a camp,” Georgiades said.
“He would go to the orphans’ home and empty it out and bring those kids down to a 4-H camp because he felt that this is the impact that 4-H program would have on these young people without families, and I think that’s such a basis for what the 4-H program has meant and continues to mean,” Georgiades said.
Montza Williams is the program director for 254 counties involved in Texas 4-H.
“The programs, the innovations, the encouragement that goes out to our people, through our agents, through the specialists, that is what we hope to get from this facility that we have,” Williams said.
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