4-H helping shape Coomer’s life

By LISA SIMPSON STRANGE
Glasgow Daily Times

GLASGOW October 10, 2008 11:17 am

— Laura Coomer has often been teased that she has green blood.
The 15-year-old was born into a family of 4-H’ers and attended her first council meeting when she was just 5 weeks old.
Her mom, Rita Coomer, was president of the 4-H council when Laura was born, so some of her first activities in life were 4-H functions. Her mother told of Laura crawling around under the table during meetings. She also had three siblings who were teenagers when she was a baby and they were all very in-volved with 4-H.
Laura has taken many 4-H classes over the years, including sewing, gardening and jewelry making, but she said her top three programs are food, scrapbooking and health and fitness.
Asked which was her all-time favorite, there was no hesitation.
“Scrapbooking – I get to capture my memories and have them displayed and it’s just really special to have them. Because if I didn’t ... I could forget them, Laura said. “There are just special times that I have with friends and new experiences I get to keep for a lifetime.”
She began scrapbooking about five years ago when she took classes at Scrapbook Village. Two years ago, she won grand champion at the Kentucky State Fair when she entered two pages under the theme, “It’s All in the Family.”
Laura said she has enjoyed teaching students how to scrapbook at 4-H camp, where they learned how to make pages and were excited about starting their own scrapbooks.
Last year, she approached Paula Tarry, Barren County Extension Agent for 4-H and Youth Development, about starting a health and fitness program because “I’ve noticed that obesity is really high in America and I wanted to start doing something about it. I needed to get in better shape, so I came up with the idea.”
She worked with Kathy Gill, a nutrition specialist at T.J. Samson Community Hospital, who taught her about fats, carbs and counting calories. She learned the difference between healthy and non-healthy foods and that it’s OK to splurge every now and then as long as good eating habits are maintained.
Laura also became involved with Cathy Botts at Extreme Fitness for Women and participated in a 12-week exercise program.
Laura also knows her way around a kitchen thanks to 4-H. She started in the food program when she was about 9 years old.
The first year, she made oatmeal cookies and learned how to measure ingredients. Each progressive section taught more advanced concepts.
“They give you the recipes and you follow them and sometimes you make cookies, brownies or a cake,” she said. “You take it to the county fair and get judged and then (if you win) take it to the state fair.”
This year, Laura won reserve champion and class champion at the state fair for her apricot-filled tea ring, which she said takes about three hours to make.
Excelling in 4-H has helped Laura work toward her gold award at the senior level, which may mean there’s a scholarship in her future.
She said the different projects have been fun, but 4-H is so much more than that.
“Most people think of 4-H as all about cows or livestock and it’s not,” Laura said. “There are so many opportunities to meet a lot of new people. I’ve made some of my very best friends through 4-H.”