Youth needed more opportunities to apply their knowledge and to grow their public speaking skills to be prepared for long-term leadership goals in association with career readiness. Hardin County did not have an active 4-H Livestock Judging team in the past and had a local leader volunteer to be the coach so a team was formed. These youth had opportunities to meet local and successful agricultural industry leaders in Hardin County as they had numerous farm visit practices for judging. 

Youth who were involved in the active 4-H Livestock club were interested in participating on this team. They had prior knowledge of judging livestock through 4-H Livestock Skill-a-thon contests and practices. This was an opportunity to improve their knowledge base of the livestock industry and to improve upon their public speaking skills through providing reasons to a judge at the contest in addition to giving reasons at practice. 

The target audience for the team were Cloverbuds (5-8 year olds), 4-H age youth, and any youth not currently enrolled in 4-H but interested in Livestock Judging. 

Our Livestock Judging coach, Ben Smith, is a teacher at the local community college, 4-H and Livestock judging alumni, in addition to being a local business/farm owner. He formed connections with local business/farm owners in order to have 'farm practices', where youth could physically be involved with judging live animals before the formal 4-H State contest. In total we were able to host a team of 3 senior 4-Hers, 2 junior 4-Hers, and 1 Cloverbud for a total of 6 youth. We had an occasional member participate in practices but weren't feeling ready to compete at the 4-H State livestock contest. We worked with at least 4 local agriculture businesses/owners to work on live animal livestock judging. 

In response to this program, youth reported feeling more confident in decision making, public speaking, and defending their reasoning behind decisions. All went on to compete at their local Hardin County 4-H/FFA Livestock Judging contest with other youth.