Posted on August 22, 2022 at 11:26 AM by Cade Cameron
Howard County is honored to present this year’s Iowa 4-H Hall of Fame award to recipients, Nate and Naomi Church.
When a young 4-H’er makes project choices, oftentimes those choices affect their future course in life. Such is the case of this hall of fame recipients. At a retirement auction north of Cresco, Iowa, a heifer calf was purchased for Naomi and a lifelong project began.
Naomi grew up as a member of the Merry Hearts of Scott 4-H club in Fayette County, her 4-H career began with this heifer calf. She exhibited annually at the Fayette County Dairy show. She participated in other projects as well including, food and nutrition, visual arts, and photography to name a few, and held club-level offices. As an outgrowth of Naomi’s dairy interest, she was selected as Fayette County Dairy Princess. Her love of the dairy project grew when she pursued a degree in Dairy Science at Iowa State University. As a member of the ISU Dairy judging team, she competed in national contests and was awarded a gold medal for her judging at the World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin. Following her graduation, she married a like-minded ISU student, Nate Church, who was farming with his parents at the time. In her move to the farm, she brought along her Jersey animals and settled into life as a dairywoman.
Continuing her commitment to 4-H, Naomi has been an able leader of the Space Age Farmers for the past 15 years with Nate assisting from 2009-2016. Nate was also very active in 4-H growing up and was a nine-year 4-H member in Howard County, taking a special interest in the dairy project.
Nate and Naomi’s children are now very active 4-H’ers themselves in the Howard County 4-H program and continue on the families love for the dairy program. Today, in their 14-cow milking herd of Jerseys, four are descendants of that first heifer calf.