In November Hopkins County had two youth attend the 2019 4-H Issues Conference. At this conference, youth are challenged to open their minds and explore issues that are facing teens in today’s world. While at the conference youth are split into five groups and they create mock presentations based on the problem they are trying to solve. During the presentations, they are trying to convince a mock fiscal court to give them funding and back their idea so they can create a program to focus on the need they are trying to solve.

Both of the youth from Hopkins County was successful in achieving funding for their issues and the mock court thought they both had wonderful thoughts and ideas. After the conference was over one of the youth told me “This was my favorite 4-H event I have ever been a part of, I think I may want o really do the program my group came up with.” The other youth followed that and said “while I don’t think I am ready to lead a program I would love to help you with yours.” They both agreed that this was something they wanted to attend next year and they wanted to recruit more youth from the county to go as well.