We can all agree that public speaking is one of the most important skills a young person can have, right? It is also a widely known fact that public speaking is one of the most common fears across the nation. 4-H has county, area, and state level communications contests at which kids can participate and excel. Madison County 4-H had 2 participants in our county contest in 2020. In 2024, just 4 years later, we had so many youth participating, we had to split our communications contest into 2 nights. We hosted a demonstration contest one night and had our speech and interview contests a separate night. Finally, in 2025, we had 14 youth give a mock interview, 26 kids give a demonstration, and 37 kids give a speech! We grew from 2 to 77 in just 5 years! Sometimes the youth do not appreciate the opportunity to talk in front of people this way, but countless parents have told us how excited they are for their kids to practice public speaking! We had 14 youth that qualified ot move on to the area contest, held in May. From there, we had 12 youth that qualified to move on to the state level! I know this shows a high quality group of youth who are refining their skills and demonstrating their incredible abilities!