When Darrell Banks took over as Lowndes County 4-H Director, he had several new ideas he wanted to implement to grow programs and membership.
Almost all of them remain filed away in his desk at the Mississippi State Extension Service office on Tom Rose Road.
Banks, 46, took over as 4-H Director on Feb. 16. A month later, COVID-19 arrived, delaying indefinitely most of Banks’ plans.
“Right now, a lot of things are on hold,” Banks said. “That’s definitely not what I had in mind.”
4-H is a nationwide program whose goal is to develop citizenship, leadership, responsibility and life skills of youth through hands-on learning programs. Though typically thought of as an agriculturally focused organization as a result of its history, 4-H today focuses on citizenship, healthy living, science, engineering and technology programs.
When COVID restrictions are lifted, Banks said he plans to get kids back “outside, working with their hands.”
“When I first came here, I talked with schools and industries and community leaders about ideas,” Banks said. “We were able to get a lot of ideas, but with COVID, we’re having to wait. The good news is that we’ve started building those relationships, so we’ll be ready to go to work when the COVID situation is over.”
Banks came to the Lowndes 4-H organization from his job in the research and compliance department at the Extension Service on the MSU campus. Before that, the Starkville native and MSU graduate served 5 1/2 years as the Extension Service’s county agent in Choctaw County, which was a primary motivator in his decision to pursue the Lowndes 4-H job.
“As county agent in Choctaw County, 50 percent of my time was devoted to running the 4-H program,” Banks said. “Here, I get to spend 100 percent of my time with 4-H. I loved getting out, working with farmers and 4-H kids. I was tired of sitting behind a desk all day.”
As fate would have it, Banks has spent much more time behind a desk than working with the kids, thanks to COVID.
“We have been able to do some programs,” he said. “We have a sports fishing program and we had Zoom meetings mostly, but we did get to the point where we could get the kids out and let them fish. They were ready to get out and about, you could tell.”
Those activities have become the exception rather than the rule, however.
“With COVID, what we’ve had to do is adapt and the main way we did that was by having Zoom meetings, mainly to stay connected to the kids,” he said. “We went from the goal of growing membership to holding on to what we have.”
The ability to retain membership (there are roughly 400 members) when in-person activities are limited is a credit to the local club volunteers, Banks said.
“They’ve done a great job staying connected, finding ways to work around the restrictions,” Banks said.
Martha Smith, who has volunteered with 4-H at the West Lowndes 4-H Club, said she’s pleased that her club hasn’t lost any of its dozen members.
“We’ve worked really hard to use Zoom meetings and other things to keep the children involved,” she said. “We normally sponsor a health fair and walk, but we couldn’t do that this year. So instead, we worked with the state health department and gave out masks at an event in August. We did that again in October. We also raised money for the United Way Christmas food program. So we’ve found ways to get out a little bit, which is what the kids want.”
Although Banks has had to hold off implementing most of his ideas, he remains optimistic.
“When (COVID) is all over, we’re going to be able to do so many things,” Banks said. “Just with our (horse riding) arena here, it opens up so many possibilities.”
The 45,000-square foot arena, which opened in January, is a resource like no other, Banks said.
“The possibilities are endless,” Banks said, “not just livestock shows and horse shows, but all kinds of things. It’s open to the public and we do have people use it, mainly for riding horses. But when COVID is over, 4-H is really going to be able to use it in a big way. So our motto is: Hang on. Big things are coming.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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