As the 2020 pandemic closed schools in early March, McCracken County Cooperative Extension Service through McCracken County 4-H was able to adapt and evolve immediately. Schools closed on March 13, 2020 and the due date for registrations for the McCracken County 4-H Communications Day was March 16, 2020. All schools that annually host mandatory school competitions in previous years were reached out to by myself to ensure registrations and the competitor names were all in after the missed deadlines. After securing the names from teachers, principals and secretaries from 6 school competitions, I reached out to everyone registered to explain that we would be hosting a virtual competition this year for the safety of all. 

Myself and two agents in neighboring counties quickly created a timeline, rules and regulations for the competition on the Purchase Area level, the step up from the county competition. After fostering my own way of hosting the competition through Google Classroom, 36 individuals participated virtually. Categories included general speech competition divided by age categories and Jr. and Sr. level Demonstration categories. These demonstration categories covered all core content areas of 4-H. 

Of the 14 County Grand Champions, 100% received Grand Champion at the Purchase Area Competition. From those 14 champions, 100% re-recorded a new video for the state competition based on judges commentary, putting collectively over 42 hours of practice into the competition. 100% of parents stated that it gave their youth something positive to focus on amidst a unknown time that was scary and hard to understand what was happening in the world around them. 

One junior demonstration competitor stated, "I definitely missed speaking to an audience this year, I can do that all day long. But when it comes to the camera, I get camera shy so the virtual recording helped push me out of my comfort zone. I really hope it's in person again next year but thank you for putting in all the work to give us back something we look forward to every year." Another junior speech competitor stated "I'm competitive and the coronavirus took every aspect of competition away from me so this still happening is the only thing making me happy during NTI" 

During this experiential learning opportunity, youth were directly engaged in civic engagement matters through their researched topics as well as applied writing, technological and public speaking skills.