It Happened in Crawford County: 4-H is a big part of Don Auck's life
As described in part one of his story last week, Crawford County native Don Auck works with Samaritan’s Purse and Operation Christmas Child. Besides the regular items that are packed in shoeboxes, his wife Donna has also made small blankets for the needy children around the world who receive the packages. When Don was serving on those mission trips, he would take some of her blankets along to hand out to the missionaries.
Don used to watch Paul Fox (the unicycle guy) and Lester Fritz (Fritz the clown) do their balloon art, including twisting balloons into little animals and creations. When Don was in Venezuela the kids kept asking for something in Spanish, which he couldn’t understand. He finally found out they wanted a sword made from balloons. It’s interesting to note that two of Don’s children, Michelle and Tyler, have both been on mission trips with their dad to New Zealand. The irony of the trip — Don’s dad passed away a couple days before leaving.
Don became involved in 4-H in the '60s and his family raised registered spotted swine. That led him into a 4-H project raising and showing pigs with the Chatfield Busy Farmer’s Club for boys. The girls joined the Chatfield Busy Bees. Don’s advisers instilled in him about 4-H; they were good leaders. He continued on for the next 10 years with assorted projects. Then he became involved with Crawford County leadership programs until after his graduation when he began his own 4-H career as an adviser. It took him on different paths — his life took him down many "rabbit trails." One time Don and several others, including Bob Burns, took a group of kids on a Natural Resources project.
Food items demonstrated at each meeting
Don also instructed entire clubs for many years like outdoor chef projects. During each meeting one member demonstrated a food item. They also did an outdoor camping trip at Mohican with the kids and adults using the training they had received. Everyone enjoyed it. No doubt former members would have a lot of memories to share. One of the other advisers had a maple syrup camp and that’s what got Don and his brothers to start an actual camp, back in the '80s. At that time, he also learned about sorghum making and beekeeping. Don worked with another adviser on the bee project.
Don also became interested in the Junior Fair livestock show at the Crawford County Fairgrounds. In the '80s he was on the sheep committee and spent 12-14 years with it. From there, Don went on into the goat committee since market goats were starting to open up at that time. He was also raising goats on his own, and by then, Don’s kids had gotten into 4-H and goats were a good project for them. He went from the goat committee to the senior fair board. Don spent another 12-14 years with that group of folks. About that same time, Don also became involved with the Ohio 4-H and helping with its state 4-H conference. He’s spent so many years with Ohio 4-H, it all kind of flows together; he can’t remember how many years he has volunteered.
Don always seems to find a new project, including alpacas. (See Myron and Rhonda Campbell’s story in 2015.) While Don doesn’t own alpacas himself, getting that project started was great. The project started with two 4–H'ers and now averages about 20 each year. Don has served on the different local levels of 4-H extension committees and advisory committees.
Enjoyed the 4-H shooting sports
Another thing Don liked as an adviser was the Ohio 4-H shooting sports which included his son Tyler, Matt Rudd and Paula Rudd Bayes. They ran with that project for who knows how many years until Don was the last of the advisers and dropped it at the county level. It required extensive work to run that part, two-day training; it was a big job. Don’s current 4-H club is the 4-H Kilbourne Klovers in Bucyrus. Of course, 4–H has third generation kids as 4-H’ers after all these years. It always a fun to see the kids learning and, over the years, their kids coming along, too. Sometimes kids have a problem and Don loves to find projects they can do and watch them grow successfully.
So far, Don has spent some 47 years as a 4-H adviser, not including his years in 4-H, and it’s anybody’s guess how many more he will add to that count.
Don and Donna started at Hope Church in Sulphur Springs, but now they are affiliated with St. John’s United Church of Christ in Bucyrus. Don and Donna’s children are Michelle Rimmele, Tim and Tyler and Tyler Auck.
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This article originally appeared on Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum: It Happened in Crawford County: Don Auck's passion for 4-H
