HETTINGER
all those people he saw who assisted him and fellow exhibitors with their experience showing animals.
“I owe a lot of my success to the 4-H and FFA programs, so it feels good to me and it feels right to pay that back somehow and if that’s the way I can do it is helping out, I love doing it,” Hettinger said. “My wife, Tara and I, we chose not to have kids, but it’s like we adopt all of them during fair week and before fair and these kids are just, to me they’re just awesome kids and most of them end up being awesome adults too.”
He’s seen first-hand what a difference the 4-H and FFA programs can make in a young person’s life, teaching them responsibility and work ethic, so it is impor tant to him to do what he can to support those programs. Plus, it’s just fun for him to be able to watch the kids and see how they improve as they get older.
“Some of them are in it for 10 years and you get to watch them grow up. It’s just kind of a cool thing to me to see happen,” Hettinger said.
Recently he has been working hard to level the playing field for animal exhibitors, specifically helping both 4-H and FFA members
have a better understanding of expectations and deadlines.
With the FFA not having a direct connection to CSU Extension Office like 4-H, Hettinger wants to help those exhibitors be better informed about deadlines and important calendar events, which is why fair of ficials created new “intent to show” forms.
“The FFA has got its set of rules and the 4-H has its set of rules and to me we’ve got to come up with an understanding of who’s responsible for what,” he said. “At the end of the day we just want to make sure these kids are doing the stuff that
they need to and getting their deadlines met and all that, so that ever ybody’s on that same page.”
Ultimately, it’s about making sure livestock exhibitors who have questions are able to get to the right people they need to be talking to in order to get their questions answered, so that they can be as successful as possible when showing their animals.
In addition to helping livestock exhibitors with the regular issues that come up, 2020 brought its own set of challenges for Hettinger thanks to COVID-19. While all of the ticked events at the Logan County Fair were cancelled, livestock events went on and it was up to Hettinger and his fellow fair board members to determine how to make them happen while following COVID-19 restrictions. But it wasn’t all bad.
“Last year’s fair was probably once in a lifetime. Yeah, it was a challenge to get everything done and whatever, but we got thanked from so many people for their kids being able to run around and they didn’t have to worry about them. I mean the county fair is more than just the livestock, we all realize that, but it was kind of cool to be part of one that we’ll probably never see again,” Hettinger said.
He enjoyed getting to watch the kids be kids, and instead of thinking about going to the carnival and things like that, they came up with activities to entertain themselves like kickball tournaments and roping contests.
“I’m glad we got to do what we got to do last year and I think everybody’s looking forward to getting back to hopefully everything can go like normal again (this year), but to be a par t of that probably once in a lifer was pretty cool too,” Hettinger said.