Welcome everybody to midday magazine for this June 6th, 2024. Have your host James J.
mail off here and we're welcoming into the studio our great friend Laura Huber for
H educator with UW Madison Extension Wood County. Laura, good to see you.
It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Appreciate the time. I want to get into some fun things that you guys are doing at
the mill and library and some other great stuff that you have going on this
summer. But if you don't mind, I'd like to start off with a new position that
you're looking for and a new hire we're going to have. Yeah, absolutely. So it
takes a lot to make these youth programs happen. And we've talked before that
4H is a whole lot more than just the work that we do in community clubs. We do a
lot and actually we'll be talking today about some of those outreach
programs. And we used to have Jasmine Carbohal, an absolutely wonderful staff
person in our office. And she's now with Extension down in Bane County. So just
yesterday we got approval from the seed committee of the county board to
rehire her position. So if you're interested in working for Extension,
specifically youth, positive youth development programs. And actually the
position that we're going to be hiring for, we're really looking for a
bilingual, a Spanish, a fluent Spanish speaker. Because Jasmine had some
fantastic success in programming there. And we'd really like to continue that
program and possibly expand it down here to Nikusa and Wisconsin Rapids. So keep
an eye out if it's something that you might be interested in. And you want to
give me a direct contact to learn more. I would be so happy to talk with you
about that. I know of at least two people actually. And I didn't think about it
until you actually started talking about like, oh, I know at least one person
specifically, that might be a good fit. And I know many of our listeners out
there might. So we encourage you, we'll get you the information on how to reach
out to Laura before we wrap up today. But that's exciting. I do want to take a
moment to shout out Jasmine. Wonderful. I know that I enjoyed working with her
once every once in a while. I can't imagine how much fun you guys had and the
kids had. We appreciated the work that she did.
Me too. And you know, I have to say right now is a great time. I reached out
to staff that she was working with in Marshfield Public Schools. Just I wanted
to be able to talk about the impact that she had from a school perspective.
It was really critically important work. And the impact that she was able to
have on students, the programs that she was doing in those schools, helping
those first language Spanish speakers feel more comfortable so that they could
succeed in school. Wow, it's wow. It's remarkable to me.
Not not so much how much if for HS change, how much it's evolved since you and I
were in school to now. It was always an amazing, amazing program. And I used to
always look at it longingly like I didn't think I blog because I was a city
kid and all this stuff. And we talked about that. But where they have gone
with incorporating more tech and incorporating more kids and more options and
more things for kids to do and and get into. And then there's the other level
of it of the bilingualism and reaching out to that. It's something that I know I'm
not alone in. We notice we appreciate it before H. And it's part of the reason
why we want to support for H and help you guys do great work over there and find
good people. And it sounds like you found a new good person to coming up here
or going to be well. So we're looking for that new person, right? We got so
lucky with Jasmine. And we know that there is a fantastic person waiting in the
wings ready to join us to help with that. And we do have another position available
for somebody. Maybe you're not bilingual, but you really want to help work with
young people in the communities or maybe with four H clubs. We're going to be
bringing on in another AmeriCorps member this fall. So we have had Molina here
doing some great programs. But we're going to be bringing somebody new in this
fall. So that's exciting. AmeriCorps is a really cool program. If you're
interested in working directly with youth, give me a call again. I'd love to
chat with you about that program. One of the things that one of the reasons
why we love supporting the four H is some of the great programs you guys do
and you do such a great job of not only getting these kids out there,
having some fun, getting some nature and enjoying themselves just between us
adults, learning the learning a bit and everything. But don't tell them that.
And of course incorporating some local businesses and some local non-profits
themselves and working with our libraries, which we love any opportunity to
shout out our libraries. You've got something cool going on with aerodynamics
that I want to get into, Laura. You bet. So I'm just going to say Macmillan
Library, Nicosah Libraries, what gems in the community? You know, one of the
things I want to highlight is programs at our public libraries are open to
everybody and they're always free. So what a cool opportunity. So yes, I'm
coming from four H, but no, I am not talking to four H members out there alone.
Four H members would be welcome, but absolutely anybody. So we've got a
series coming up that I'm super excited about. It's an aerodynamics program.
This one is going to be for kids age 10 and up. We're going to be using
some sharp knives. We're going to be using hot glue guns because we're going
to be building both balsa wood gliders and these super cool foam core gliders
with a two foot wingspan that we can open up and pack things into for all kinds
of testing, but it's not just about the building of the glider. It's about
learning, how is it that we can have these ginormous machines that literally
weigh tons of pounds? How can they get up off the ground and stay up there and
move? So in building these things really hands on and fun, we're going to be
learning about the forces of flight. So it's going to be a wonderful program. I've
done this before for four H's and I had to charge. I had to charge $25 per kid to be
able to because the kids are going to be taking these gliders home. They are
theirs, but through our partnership with the library, it's absolutely free. And
because it is in partnership with the library, registration is going to be
through the library. Space is limited so we can make sure everybody is safe
with the equipment that they're using. And I just talked with Carrie this morning
at the library. Registration should be up by this weekend by Saturday. And what
you're going to do is if you're interested in signing up, you'll go to Macmillan
Memorial Library's website. They've got a tab for events. And then look for
these dates. July 10, July 17, July 24, and July 31. You'll select on one of
those and that's how you'll be able to register. I think a lot of us remember
making paper airplanes as kids and stuff. This is a whole other level of that.
And I mean, in so many cool ways, I remember I was fortunate growing up. My
uncle was an architect and working with and not working with him, but I felt
like it because I win with him to work sometimes and everything. So for me, when
I would look at these skyscrapers as a kid in Chicago, I didn't just see them.
I saw the building of them, the people that made them happen, the construction
workers, all this stuff. And to this day, I can't look at them and not see
that. And I've always had a love of architecture from this. I have many friends
of mine who had family members that worked at O'Hare and have gone on to have
a love of aerodynamics and some of these things. That may be even going into
that field, but just a respect and love for it. So that alone is a kind of
cool thing that may be, you know, interesting to kids and certainly get them
going. But then there's something that you and I always come back to that
spark. Yeah. If this creates a spark in one of their brains, who knows where
they go with that? Just from a fun class like this.
Absolutely. And that's just what it's all about, right? Like I might not have
the skills to be able to teach my kids all of these things, but there are
people out in the community offering programs. So I can sign them up and we'll
see where it goes. And you know, there's no fear, right? They might catch that
spark. And there will always be some other program that some other put some
other person puts on or we can learn together with our kids, which is a really
fun and exciting thing to do too. It's a great point to mention. Yeah. And by
the way, we might just have to build some paper airplanes with this one too.
Because as you talk about memories with your family, when I was growing up,
my grandparents had a sunken living room. And we would go over to my
grandparents house and my dad would always fold paper airplanes. So I didn't
know the language of the time. But he would he would start his basic airplane
fold. And then he would start asking us questions. Do you want a pointy nose
or a blunt nose? Do you want bent wings or do you want flat wings? Do you
think the wings should bend up or bend down? That was all the introduction of
engineering to me. And then we could fly that paper airplane, see how it flew
and then we would take it back to my dad. Well, what do you think we should do?
How should we change it? So that's a really easy introduction. And it's tons of
fun. So long as nobody at the library gets to mad at us for throwing paper airplanes
around. It's one of the few times it might be okay.
It shot it to your dad. That was an awesome move by him. Very smart. I
appreciate your mentioning that and sharing that. And again, this is not all of
these things are great. It's also just a lot of fun. Something to do with the kids
too. So there's no bad reason to be checking this out and being a
part of it. We'll talk more about this as we get closer to it on our morning
shows as well. And make sure that when the registration dates open up people
know about them. Excellent. The one piece we are asking is that if you register
for this one, you're committing to all four days because this really is a skill
building one on top of the next. And that big glider is going to take us
multiple sessions to finish and build. So it's not something that you can come
in late and be able to catch up and be on top of. And again, that actually
I think has an advantage to it of some consistency for the kids, the routine
and which we can always use a little bit of it during the summer. Where the
you know, once we try to get them in the fall back to school and on a schedule
that could be rough. Having a little bit of like routine here and there in
summer can be fun and actually help you going forward. You bet. And another
real great benefit of this repeated thing is that we'll be pulling kids from
different schools and we'll be pulling kids from homeschool and all of that
kind of stuff. If they're just in the space together one time, they're
strangers. But as they come repeatedly, we already know they are young people
with a common interest. Friendships can build in a situation like this where
we have the repeated interactions. And because it's a 4-H program educator
leading it, you know there's going to be activities that we're doing
besides the specific airplane stuff. Right. Where we're going to be working to
help those young people get to know one another and get comfortable with one
another and let those friendships blossom. We're speaking with Laura,
humor 4-H educator with UW Madison Extension Wood County. And Laura, we love
McMillan. We love our local libraries. And you guys are going to be visiting
another one coming up in July, the Lester library in Nicosah. You bet. So
reaching out to libraries in the summer, what a great thing because families are
already visiting them as part of the summer reading programs. And so I just
reached out and I said, you know, is there something that we can do?
Something extra, something that your young people are looking for. And
I just kind of left. Yes. Yes. We had a sixth grader ask about
Rube Goldberg machines. We're not sure about how to make Rube Goldberg
Rube Goldberg machines. That's something that you could lead them through
quite fun. Yeah. So if you're not familiar with what a Rube Goldberg
machine is, it's a really complicated, distorted and wacky kind of machine.
We give the young people a challenge. Okay. And maybe that challenge is to
sprinkle some salt on your food or maybe it's squirt some tooth-paced onto a
toothbrush, something like that. And then we just give them this random bunch of
materials. And they have to figure out how they can put these different materials
together to accomplish the task. So that is the challenge. That is the program
we're going to be doing at Nakuza. What a fun one. Now, there are a, I would
think just off the top of my head, there are at least 50 different, like,
little life lessons kids are going to learn through this and be able to pick
up on everything from teamwork to problem solving to incorporating your
creativity in the work field and that. So many different things that have
benefited me and many. I'm sure even you, Laura, as an adult and as a
professional and everything. But this is also just another one of those ones.
Well, you guys are so good at this. They're going to learn some stuff. They're
going to figure some of those things out. They're going to have a blast with
this. I mean, you're basically putting a mess in front of kids in saying play
with it. That seems like a pretty fun thing to a kid. It seems fun to me. Play
with it and you can do it. Right? Yes. And no, there is not a step-by-step
instruction on how to do it. We are pulling their creative brains like to the
forefront. There's no grade at the end. There's no test at the end. So we don't
have to worry about like that. What is the right lesson? Nobody needs to be
intimidated. And you know what? If they test it out and it doesn't work, they
can tear it apart and rebuild. It's kind of like Legos. That's first thing I thought
it was Legos. If something doesn't work, take it apart and try again. And that's
what this is. And again, who do I think is going to come to this? I think young
people who are kind of intrigued at that thought of like that challenge. Or
maybe they love building things. Or you know, maybe they're those future
architects. You know, you just never know. But again, the kids who come are
going to have something in common. So they'll be able to meet other young
people. They'll be able to get these challenges. And by the way, I am not releasing
the challenge any time in advance. So for the record, if you're thinking you're
going to try and figure out now how to sprinkle that salt chaker or how you're
going to squeeze that toothpaste tube, you're out of luck because those will
not be the challenges. Well done. Well done. And that's going to be so much fun.
But again, I would be remiss if I wasn't also mentioning that I think that it's
so cool to have these little life lessons for kids to learn and build on as
well. We as adults have certain things that I believe are our
responsibility. And one of them is building up our youth. And these
opportunities, they may not seem like they come around very often, but they are
scattered throughout our everyday lives. Some of them are, you know, just simple
things that you do when you come across a stranger and a stranger or something.
And some of them are things like this where you get your kids involved in
this stuff. And there is no there is no negative to this. There is nothing but
positives to an event like this. And fun and a chance to check out our local
libraries as well. There's again, this is just off the top of my head. There are a
lot of other things that are going to be advantages to your kids and to your
family taking part in this stuff. Absolutely. 100%. One thing I want to say about
the Nukusa program is there is no registration required. You know, this is
just going to be, I think it's at 10 o'clock in the morning on Tuesday, July
30th. Just come on down. And, you know, if parents or grandparents or
guardians, whoever is with the kids want to be there and watch what's going on
great, if they want to hang out in the library or, you know, read to the younger
kids or whatever else that's great to this one isn't going to have the sharp
objects and the hot glue guns or anything like that. So if you're able to stay
and, you know, that's great. If you have other things you need to do, that's
absolutely okay too. Laura, I want to take some time to, well, first I want to
remind everybody that you guys have some events coming up in the Marshfield area.
I think we'll have you one before then. So we'll talk about those, but we, we,
we say a shout out to Marshfield. I want to say a shout out to Wood and Marathon
County 4-H with their outdoor adventure camp. Yeah. You've been really busy with
this. This is one that we just introduced a couple of years ago. And we found
that some parents were really kind of nervous about sending their kids away
for overnight camp overnight camp. By the way, I leave on Sunday. So that is
right around the corner here. But we know that kids want to like dive into the
skills that we do at camp. So we've got something local. We're going to have a
day camp that features so many of our favorite things about camp. It's going to be
at Wood County's Dexter Park in Dexterville. We'll do canoeing, we'll do fishing,
we'll do archery, we'll do fire building, we'll do campfire cooking and all of
these sorts of things. And yet again, you don't have to be a member of 4-H to
participate in these. That's going to be Thursday, July 18th. And registration is
already open right now. We're going to close registration on July 1st so that we
can, you know, get all of our wheels. No, what are all of our ducks aligned? All
your ducks in the road. Yeah. Just made a four works there. You know, I know
fence and all fits. And it's a really fun opportunity for these kids and for
these parents, as you said, to let them do this without, you know, so like a
little bit like your kids for sleepover being across the street. It's kind of
like that a little bit. What about the the ages for this is for Laura? Yeah, so
this one we're kind of looking at about age 10 and up. Kind of like that McMillan
library program. And the reason, well, this one's because of the fire, they're
honest to Pete going to learn how to make a campfire with one match. Wow. I'm
going to tell you, if you can never get your charcoal grill started, if you can't
get your own campfire started, send your kids to outdoor adventure camp and you
will never have to worry about your charcoal grill or your campfire again. I
mean, that alone, my dad would be signing me up if he could. Like, yeah, there's
plenty of people looking to set up for that. We also want to make sure that the
parents know they are welcome to this. Absolutely. So the activities that we're
doing here are really family friendly activities. Personally, when I was growing
up, my family didn't do any of this kind of stuff. I got my introduction to all
of these things that have become lifelong passions of mine through participating
in Girl Scouts. I wasn't a for-h-er as a kid. I was a Girl Scout. And so I really
I feel like I missed out not being able to do that with my own family. I'm happy
to do it with my family now with my own children. But I think it's really
important for us to kind of open this opportunity up not only to the kids,
but maybe the parents too. Because maybe you'll see that this is something you
would love to pursue as a family. This is one of the ones you and I are very
similar on. I also grew up in a very similar way. It wasn't until my sister was
a little older than my mom started getting her involved in brownies and
doing some of that with that. I wasn't part of a privy to those kind of
things. So for me, if my kids were in that age range and I was doing this, I'm
darn sure going with them. Like I want experiences. I want to I've never been
camping. I want to experience that. And here's a great opportunity to do that
together. Absolutely. That's pretty cool. And I also always think it's really
cool for parents to take a step back and watch their young people engage with
their peers and just see how much they really are capable of. Sometimes it's
hard for us to make that transition from pouring the gallon of milk for our
children to allowing them to grab that gallon of milk and pour it on their
own. Well, watch what they can do when you step back and you watch them start
that one matchfire. It's even hard when they're in their 20s. It's still it's
still hard. It's not. And that's a great opportunity. And again, you can register
right now. I was testing this out this morning. We could give people the
address, but I would say if you type into your search bar, wouldn't marathon
county 4-H outdoor adventure camp? Something along those lines, you are
definitely going to find it. You can also find out more at 4h.extension.wisc.edu
4h.extension.wisc.edu. Laura, if people want to call and find out more about
some of the other things we've talked about, how can they reach you? So my phone
number is 715-421-8439. But as I mentioned earlier, you know, summer camp is
just a couple of days away here. So I'll be gone for several days. Go ahead and
reach me by email too. My email address is Laura L-A-U-R-A dot Hubert H-U-B-As-N-B-O-E-R
at WISC.edu. And we also have Wendy in the office. So if calling is the most
convenient thing to do, go ahead and give a call, even if you know I'm not in the
office, and Wendy will definitely be able to help you too. And that email address,
I mean, that web address again, is 4h.extension.wisc.edu. Laura, I always love
talking with you. We'll talk about these events as we get closer to them on our
morning shows. Make sure you guys have a good turnout. And we'll have you join us
real soon. Great. Thanks so much James. Thank you for the time. We'll have more
midday magazine for you tomorrow right here at 97-5 FM 13-20 AM WFHR locally
grown radio.