Amid War and Protest, Maine 4-Hers Quietly Visit the Capital
WASHINGTON – While affirmative-action activists filled the street outside the Supreme Court and Maine’s Congress members ran from committee hearings to policy meetings, 17-year-old Erin Spear of Canton and 19-year old Devin Prock of Walderboro wound their way through the overwhelming maze of Senate and House office buildings Tuesday.
They got lost only once, as they tried to find a cafeteria.
Spear and Prock came to the capital to attend the annual national 4-H council conference at the organization’s Chevy Chase, Md., headquarters. On Tuesday, the group of about 200 teens visited members of their states’ congressional delegations.
So Spear and Prock, along with their chaperone, Karen Hatch-Gange, a University of Maine coordinator from Sydney, set off on a mission. They wanted to make sure Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins and Reps. Thomas Allen and Michael Michaud knew at least one thing about 4-H.
As Prock put it: “4-H is more than cows and cooking.”
It’s reputation is for agriculture, but 4-H really is about leadership, the students repeated in four meetings with the members. While some amount of farming is involved, not all the members have cows, the teens told the lawmakers, quietly at first, but more confidently as they went from office to office.
Their purpose might not have been as lofty as that of the throngs trying to influence the Supreme Court on affirmative action. And they might not have as great an impact as the members of Congress in their meetings and hearings. They came, primarily, to make sure the lawmakers understood that the 4-H network is connected to many after-school enrichment programs, camps and clubs – that it is helping young people in Maine and nationwide.
“4-H makes a person a better person,” Prock said to Allen. “We help people who need help.”
Spear, for example, enjoys crafts. Recently, she and other members of her 4-H group in Canton constructed a handicap-accessible garden at a local nursing home. Prock helped autistic boys learn how to show and work with animals.
“That sounds wonderfully worthwhile,” Collins said, as the teens told her about their leadership activities, projects with adults and work with schools.
Collins took a few minutes to tell Spear and Prock about some of her recent activities, including oversight of the new Department of Homeland Security as chairwoman of the Governmental Affairs Committee. And before the senator ran off to her weekly Republican policy lunch, she joked with the teens about partisan disagreements.
Spear and Prock said they were struck by how pleasant the members were. And the two of them really seemed to take to politics.
“I like cows and all,” Prock said, “but this stuff’s more fun.”
Published in The Kennebec Journal and The Morning Sentinel, in Maine.
