By: Cady Tucker
Living in Kiowa provides many opportunities for Community Service work. My options included working at the Ministerial Alliance Food Bank, helping deliver meals on wheels, or working at the General Store, which is the local thrift store run entirely on donations. But for my service work I chose to volunteer at the county fair, since volunteers were badly needed, and also to work at the community garden. I was able to chose my own hours for the community garden, and will continue to volunteer to help weed and pick produce from the garden. This is a local effort and is producing a large volume of food for the community. They have a wonderful herb garden planted, which I love. I’ve included a photo of some of the produce.
Volunteering at the Barber County Fair, I was the Floraculture Superintendent. Since I love houseplants this was the perfect place for me to assist. I was there early in the morning to accept and help categorize the floral entries. Each item had to be placed in the correct class and then grouped together to be judged. Then I assisted the judge by keeping the entries ready for him to be judged. Once judged I recorded the top 3 placings and pulled them for Champion and Reserve Champion judging. He then chose an overall Grand Champion and Reserve Grand Champion for this years fair. Once judging was finished I took the results to the fair office. I learned a couple of things about judging this year. First he judged on how true the plant represented the species, shape of the flower, stems and petals were all part of his judging. Then he judged on the freshness of the entry. Were the blooms fresh or spent already? Was the entry in the right class? It was very interesting to me.
I enjoyed spending the day at the fair and meeting new people in Barber County.
