Hello everyone!
My name is Brooke Parker, and I am headed into my final year of undergrad at OSU E-Campus. I am a business administration student, minoring both in writing as well as agricultural/ natural resource communications. This summer, I get the amazing privilege of interning with the Deschutes County 4-H team at their OSU Extension office.
I am currently in my 6th week of this internship, where my main project has been the creation of a procedure/ guidebook of all the major tasks leading up to and including both the Deschutes County Fair and the Deschutes County Horse Fair. The goal of this project is to create a consolidated resource of information about exactly what needs to happen every year to make both fairs a success! This can include writing tasks down as small as checking the water faucets in the animal barns for leaks, or as big as hiring judges and ensuring their contracts and pay information is accurate (and what general accounts would typically pay for that process). It is a huge task, but I am very excited to see how it all comes together by the end of week 10.
Last week was the 2026 Horse Fair in Deschutes County, so after lots of busy preparation, it was fun to see the horse fair come together and watch the horse 4-H’ers have a good time with their projects.
One of the most exciting parts of this past week, aside from helping set up for the horse fair, was the opportunity to participate in it with the adult showmanship competition that was hosted last Friday night. The Horse 4-H judging team created a short, easy pattern for us to follow and memorize. The adults participating had to find horses to borrow from 4-H’ers, and some participants even wore costumes to the class which was pretty hilarious. Most notably, one person wore an inflatable cow suit, someone else wore a ghillie suit, and then one of the 4-H dads showed his Corgi in the horse pattern; they all got lots of laughs. Though I’ve spent my whole life around horses, in the three-day-eventing scene I knew almost nothing about horse showmanship, making this a cool learning experience.
A huge thank-you to Morgan Henson, who has been supervising me throughout this process, as well as the rest of the Deschutes 4-H team!
