By James Ronald Skains
Journal Correspondent

"The first 4-H club in Louisiana started in Avoyelles Parish 100 years ago and again the people in Avoyelles Parish have stepped up to help us make the Louisiana 4-H Museum a reality," Dr. Paul Coreil, Vice Chancellor and Director of the LSU Ag Center told the Piney Woods Journal.

"Numerous people in Avoyelles Parish are to be commended for their efforts in making the 4-H Museum a reality," Dr. Coreil stated. "Both Senator Hines and Representative Monica Walker, when they were in office, helped to secure the initial funding for the Museum."

"When everything is finished and all the cost counted, the project cost will be upwards of $750,000," Dr. Coreil said proudly. "Not all of the money was state funded but the Louisiana Legislature was very generous to us."

"We did a survey of the legislature a couple years ago and nearly half of the legislators had been at one time a member of a 4-H Club," Dr. Coreil emphasized.

"Several local businesses became sponsors as did most of the statewide farm organizations," Dr. Coreil said. "The Police Jury chipped in money and everyone came together to make it happen. We still have a few sponsorships available."

"Allen Canning Company has been a big sponsor of the 4-H Museum as has the Louisiana Farm Bureau," Dr. Coreil added. "One of the more interesting exhibits in the Museum is a parade of floats that feature different sectors and time frames of agriculture in Louisiana. We have gotten various agriculture based companies to sponsor these floats."

The 4-H Museum in Mansura is governed by an Advisory Committee of made up of both AgCenter participants and private industry and trade organization representatives. The 4-H Museum is operated as an IRS approved 501-C-3 entity. It is operated by a Curator and a full time staff.

"We had hoped to get the Museum open earlier but due to the design of our exhibits, we are a little behind schedule. We decided to take our time and get the exhibits just as we wanted them rather than rush things," Dr. Coreil explained.

"Actually I've personally been in every position there is in 4-H," Dr. Coreil, the Director of the far reaching LSU Ag Center, pointed out. "I guess I have to be honest about the first things that attracted me to the 4-H back when I was a nine year old kid in Ville Platte. I quickly noticed that the pretty girls joined the 4-H, and the second thing was that you got out of class to attend 4-H," Dr. Coreil acknowledged with a laugh. "But 4-H became the foundation for my career in agriculture, and I've never forgotten those early years."

"I experienced so many exciting times in those days, camping, hunting, fishing, canoeing, all kinds of growing things, public speaking and I even learned to cook in 4-H," Dr. Coreil noted. "I've developed a real passion over the years about all the positive influences that come out 4-H membership. I want all the kids in Louisiana to have the experience of being a 4-H member."

"We are making a big emphasis on life skills now in 4-H," Dr. Coreil emphasized. "The kids don't learn many life skills or the joy of the outdoors in modern day classrooms."

W. Dwight Landreneau, former Secretary of the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Department and also the former Director of State Parks, is now the Associate Director of the LSU Ag Center with a special focus on the 4-H sector of the Extension Service.

"I'm back home were I belong,: Landreneau told the Journal. "Like Dr. Coreil, I've been involved in every facet of 4-H life from a member to a staffer and as an Extension Agent."

"The idea for the 4-H Museum came about as a result of groups of extension agents getting together and talking about how one hundred years of 4-H in Louisiana could best be celebrated," Landreneau commented. "A permanent memorial in the form of a Museum was determined to be the best way to leave an existing legacy about the first one hundred years of 4-H in Louisiana."

During the tenure of Kathleen Blanco as Lt. Governor, the Louisiana State Parks underwent an extensive expansion and retrofit campaign under Landreneau as Director of State Parks. Now, Landreneau has another extensive renovation and expansion project going at Camp Grant Walker in Grant Parish near Pollock.

"We are making some major improvements at Camp Grant Walker which is entering its 87th year of service to the 4-H organization," Landreneau pointed out. "We've had bulldozers working, expanding our ponds, put in more hiking trails and we've also been renovating buildings at Camp Grant Walker."

A total of $6 million is now in the works at Grant Walker, and another expansion and further renovation is planned soon. However, it was noted, that the State of Alabama is investing nearly $20 million dollars in its 4-H summer camps.

"Our 4-H Museum in Mansura is a state of the art facility in more ways that one," Landreneau explained. "There is a lot of animation with all kinds of animals and other scenes. The same people who did the Atchafalaya Basin Welcome Exhibition Center are doing our animation exhibition."

The 4-H Museum, located at 8592 Highway One Suite 2, Mansura 71350 is located in a multiple use LSU Ag Center Extension office complex. The Museum takes up more than twelve hundred square feet of the complex.

"In some ways we are going back to basics by stressing life skills," Dr. Coreil pointed out, "but there is a big need for that in our younger generation. So many of our youth are overweight and get very little if any exercise."

"We are stressing nutrition more than ever," Dr. Coreil continued. "We are working on having vegetable gardens at the schools that have 4-H programs."

"We are not only taking a look back in history of 100 years with our 4-H Museum, but we are projecting out what the next 100 years in 4-H and agriculture may be like in Louisiana," Dr. Coreil explained.

In 2008 alone, 243,532 students in all 64 parishes participated in 4-H in Louisiana. Another 194,628 youths were reached by 4-H school enrichment programs.

"Back during the early days of Camp Grant Walker, kids who didn't have the money to pay for their trip to camp would bring chickens and vegetables of all sorts in exchange for their trip," Dr. Coreil noted. "I've heard a lot of stories about how the kids got to 4-H camp back in the early days. I remember the kids from Gonzales and many other towns around the state would ride the train to summer camp in Pollock."

The Director of the 4-H Museum is Rose Anne St. Romain. The Museum is calling for photos, ribbons, certificates, trophies, documents, handicrafts projects, demonstration materials, record books, and more to be used in exhibits, traveling displays, presentations and archives.

St. Romaine's email address is: RStRomain@agcenter.lsu.edu with the website at www.lsuagcenter.com/4-HMuseum . The phone of the Museum is 318-964-2259.

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