Cooperation between the Spencer County 4-H and FFA dairy programs are a model example for other counties.

 Spencer County is very active in our 4-H dairy judging program. Many of  their youth trained in the 4-H program eventually represent Kentucky in  the National 4-H Dairy Cattle Judging Contest and the National FFA Dairy Cattle Evaluation and Management Career Development Event.

 The National FFA Dairy Cattle Evaluation and Management Career  Development Event has a portion where the team has to evaluate the  production practices of a hypothetical dairy farm. They then have to  give an oral presentation elucidating the strengths and weaknesses of  the production practices and suggest changes to rectifying the  weaknesses. Not many of the Spencer County youth are farm youth and none are dairy farm youth so I am involved in teaching them about proper  dairy cattle management practices.

 Spencer County has had the National Champion FFA Dairy Cattle Evaluation and Management Career Development Event team eight of the last 13 years including 2017. I have helped train all of these teams and they  complement the three National Champion 4-H Dairy Cattle Judging teams I  have coached.

 This is copied from an email from Bland Baird, Spencer County Vo-Ag  teacher: "Dr. Heersche has had a tremendous influence on our students,  and without his help, our competitive success would have not been  possible.