Hello again! 

Just in case you didn’t already read my first blog post (linked here), I’ll go ahead and re-introduce myself. My name is Brooke Parker, and this summer I have had the opportunity to intern with Deschutes County 4-H at their OSU Extension office. I am headed into my final year of undergrad at OSU E-Campus, studying business administration, with double minors in writing as well as agricultural communications. 

My main roles in this internship so far have been to support Deschutes County’s horse fair and general fair. I have also been working on creating a task sheet to document everything that happens every year to make the fairs successful.

During the fair, which happened two weeks ago, my role consisted of little supporting errands such as brining requested items to the superintendents, or helping set up our 4-H ice cream booth. 

Apart from that, my major daily responsibility during the fair was to judge herdsmanship in the swine and beef barns. Herdsmanship is a competition where 4-H members are graded on the appearance and quality within three categories: members’ presence, the animals, and their area as well as common areas near their club. It was fun to walk through the barns every day and catch glimpses of 4-H’ers getting ready for shows and taking care of their animals. 

My main project was raising and breeding rabbits when I used to do 4-H. Knowing this, my supervisor, Morgan, offered me the opportunity to judge the rabbit master showmanship.  At first, I was concerned that I might not remember enough about rabbits to judge well. I borrowed a rabbit 4-H handbook and all the information came right back to me. I feel like that goes to show how much the 4-H program can leave a lasting impression, that I remembered almost everything, even after years away from the environment.

I had fun interacting with all the Champion and Reserve Champion small animal showmen. It was likely many of the students first time showing a rabbit (for those who typically showed other species). I was pleased to shake their hands after each round and congratulate them on the hard work that had gotten them there.

In these final two weeks of my internship, I plan to wrap up the task sheet. My goal is to create a useful resource for 4-H staff in future years, that will help operations to be more efficient and reduce the mental load of organizing the fair each year. 

Once again, a big thank you to Morgan Henson, my supervisor for this internship, and to the rest of the 4-H staff, as well as all of our wonderful superintendents and volunteers. And a big congratulations to all of the 2026 Deschutes County Fair exhibitors for finishing out another year! 

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!