Community Corner
North Potomac Teen Raises Sheep for Montgomery County Fair
Fourth generation farmer and 4-H member is serious about her animals.
Helena Hanson, 14, has been attending the Montgomery County Agricultural Fair since before she was born.
Hanson, who attends Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. and lives in North Potomac, is part of the fourth generation of Hansons to raise animals in the 4-H and show them at the annual fair.
Her father, Tim Hanson, is the current president of the Fair Corporation, and her grandfather was one of the founding members of the committee that established the fair in 1949.
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Helena and the sheep she is showing this year basically live at Sheep Barn 30 for the nine days of the fair. Although her sheep is a male, his name is “Hazel” because she thought she would be getting a female to raise early in the year and stuck with the name she had picked out. She is a member of the Montgomery County 4-H Sheep and Swine Club and has been showing animals at the fair since she was 9 years old.
“The fair is the culmination of all this work that we do,” Hanson said of the 4-H clubs, “but during the year, we have monthly meetings...and raise money. We use the money to either improve the barns and such or we find causes that we donate to. We all vote on it.”
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The 4-H has a variety of clubs based on the animals that are being raised. Each club is separate and autonomous, but under the larger umbrella of the national 4-H organization. The 4-H Sheep and Swine Club, as with all of the 4-H animal clubs, has programs to teach its members about how to raise the animals. They have quality assurance testing within their ranks on health, safety, and how to correctly treat the animals.
The 4-H, whose national headquarters is located in northwest Washington, is traditionally known as a rural farming organization to teach farming children about animals and plants. The umbrella 4-H organization also has youth development and science programs based in suburban and urban communities, too.
Helena thinks there are not a lot people in the city or suburbs raising sheep, though.
“It's mostly farm kids.” she said, “You don't have many people like me who go to D.C. for school and do this. They're mostly not from right here, but from around here. More like from Damascus, Laytonsville, Poolesville.”
Helena and Hazel did very well at the showing this fair, and Helena is sure that she'll be involved in the county fair for years to come.