Scholarships: MS 4-H Livestock & Horse
Announcer: Farm and Family is a production of the Mississippi State University Extension Service.
Amy Myers: Today we're talking about scholarships in Mississippi 4-H Livestock and Horse Programs. Hello, I'm Amy Myers and welcome to Farm and Family. Today we're speaking with Dr. Dean Jousan, Mississippi State University Extension 4-H livestock specialist.
Dean, Mississippi 4-H Livestock and Horse Programs are very popular among youth. What are some ways that youth can be involved in 4-H livestock programs?
Dean Jousan: Well, Amy, there's lots of ways that youth can be involved in our 4-H livestock programs. There are plenty of livestock shows that take place throughout the year. There are always lots of county fairs, county jackpot shows that take place pretty much throughout the year. Any weekend you want to go somewhere, you can likely find a show to go to.
At the state level, we have our state fair that takes place in October, and then we have our Dixie National that takes place the end of January into February, so those are our big state supported contests. Then throughout the year, there's lots of opportunities. We have everything from judging contests to quiz bowls to visual presentations.
Amy Myers: So youth can compete in livestock shows and educational contests. Are there any ways youth can compete for scholarships with their animals?
Dean Jousan: One that I'll address real quick is a scholarship that is offered at the Dixie National and our showmanship contests. This scholarship is sponsored by the Dixie National Booster Club and what they do is they award a plaque and a scholarship to the highest placing high school senior in each of our major showmanship contests. So that's a way that even if an exhibitor doesn't have the highest quality animal, if they've still really worked with exhibiting and training that animal to show, that's an opportunity for them to compete with their animal for a scholarship.
Amy Myers: What about other opportunities for youth in the livestock program to compete for scholarships? I understand that the Sale of Champions Promotion Committee awards several types of scholarships.
Dean Jousan: Yeah, the Sale of Champions for over 25 years now has offered scholarships. They started with one scholarship for $1,000.00 and the past several years have awarded 37 scholarships every year that total over $58,000.00. So to break those down a little bit, there are six scholarships that are called Supreme animal scholarships. These go to the winner of the Supreme beef female, the beef bull, the dairy cattle female, the dairy goat female, commercial meat goat doe, and another scholarship that goes to Supreme animals. And those are $1,500.00 scholarships.
Then we have six Premier Exhibitor scholarships and those are $2,000.00 a piece. They're worth a little bit more money because the contestant has to put in a lot of effort. There's an application for this Premier Exhibitor scholarship and then they have to go through a bunch of stations, an exam, an interview, and then they also earn some points with their animals.
The last type of scholarship that is awarded through the Sale of Champions go to exhibitors who are in their high school senior year and do not have an animal that qualified for the Sale of Champions. So that's always a very competitive way, through an application process, for those youth to be selected for those scholarships.
Amy Myers: So now changing gears to the 4-H horse program, what are ways youth can compete in that?
Dean Jousan: So in the horse program we have lots of classes and lots of ways that youth can be involved with showing their horses. And similar to the livestock side of things, there are always horse shows all across Mississippi where youth can be involved with most every weekend. At our stage show, we typically have over a hundred classes where youth can show horses. And we have everything from ranch classes to our Western classes to saddle and gaited classes to miniature classes, speed, cattle and goat, and anything you can think of we try to offer.
We also have lots of educational contests. We have six core contests that we use for our horse program, and then we have some creative contests as well. We have horse art, horse photography. So pretty much anything that you can think of with horses, we offer that through 4-H.
Amy Myers: Okay. So tell me about some scholarship opportunities in the 4-H horse program.
Dean Jousan: Through our Mississippi 4-H Horse Clubs Incorporated, that group has offered two scholarships a year, and those scholarships are awarded to high school seniors and they're usually at about $500.00. So that's another application process that will be sent out that youth can apply for, for 4-H horse scholarships.
Amy Myers: And how can youth learn more about Mississippi 4-H Livestock and Horse Programs?
Dean Jousan: So just go to your favorite search engine online and search for Mississippi 4-H Livestock Program, and that should take you to the link to find out all you want to know.
Amy Myers: Today we've been speaking with Dr. Dean Jousan, 4-H livestock specialist. I'm Amy Myers and this has been Farm and Family. Have a great day.
Announcer: Farm and Family is a production of the Mississippi State University Extension Service.