Kids Learn Life Skills at 4-H Competition
4-H members from across East Tennessee came to UT to compete in the FCS Skillathon. Some even took home prizes.
Knoxville, TN. On Friday 4-H members arrived at the University of Tennessee to compete in the first annual Family and Consumer Science Skillathon.
This competition is a new one for the organization. It’s taking several competitions that were ended due to a lack of national finals and combining them into one contest that teaches life skills.
Many 4-H leaders are hoping this competition will at least teach the kids something, and they want to add some contest variety to the program.
“This one’s really to build fcs competency, so, you know, we don’t have many 4-H family and consumer science judging contests,” says Justin Thomas.
Thomas is the Eastern Region Family and Consumer Science Program leader. He says that while the competition has many categories that were canceled solo contests, the Skillathon will allow the high schoolers to compete on a national level.
The middle school competitors don’t get to move on to the state level just yet. They still have to wait a few years for the big stage, but they are learning valuable knowledge about everyday household items.
Middle schoolers like Oliver Bullard from Loudon County were happy to be there competing, after weeks of practicing.
“It’s a lot of memorizing and remembering what things are,” Bullard says.
He says he’s learned a lot about sewing and craftmanship from the competition, but those aren’t what he considers his best categories. That honor would be reserved for cooking.
The contest was intense for the first year. It offered multiple categories, giving the different members of the competing teams different places to shine.
The kids had to compete in sewing and clothing, housing and interiors, and foods and cooking. And they only got 15 minutes in each category.
The competition was tough, and even though everyone did their best, someone had to win.
The junior high winner was the team from Jefferson County, and the senior high winner was the team from Meigs County. The Meigs County team will get to compete at the state level later this year.
The FCS Skillathon might be a new competition, but teams are already preparing for next year. The contest may be fierce, but the kids are getting valuable life skills they’ll use for the rest of their lives, even if they don’t win.
