Sept. 6, 2007

JACKSBORO – For Texas 4-H'ers, all roads lead from Jacksboro, where 4-H in the Lone Star State has its roots.

Jordan Greene, 17, health and safety officer for the Texas 4-H Council – along with several thousand other 4-H'ers – is planning to hit that road in celebration of Texas 4-H's 100th anniversary.

The Texas 4-H Council has challenged all 4-H members and volunteers – and, in fact, all Extension personnel in the state – to "Walk Across Texas" for at least 100 miles, said Gayle Hall, Texas Cooperative Extension 4-H and youth development specialist. That's a mile for each year of 4-H's history in Texas. In Texas, the 4-H program is part of the state's Extension service.

About a century ago, Jacks County Agent Tom Marks organized the first boys' ‘corn club' in Texas. From that first club with its 25 members, Texas 4-H was born. Since then it has expanded throughout the state to its current membership of several hundred thousand members in all 254 counties, Hall said.

And that's why Greene and other Texas 4-H'ers plan to hit the pavement during a six-week period beginning this month.

"I have participated in Walk Across Texas in the past and have always enjoyed the program," Greene said. "I feel that everyone is really excited about the approaching centennial celebration and tying Walk Across Texas into the centennial will be very effective."

Walk Across Texas was established by Extension in 1996 to encourage physical activity, Hall said. Participants in the eight-week program can join teams or go it alone. Time spent in physical activities is added up, with roughly each 15 minutes counting as one mile. At the end of each week, participants add their miles and look at a map of the state to see how far they have walked ‘across Texas' that week – even if they never leave their own neighborhoods.

For more information about Walk Across Texas, visit the Web at http://walkacrosstexas.tamu.edu/ .

As Texas 4-H health and safety officer, Greene knows the statistics of – and the worries about – excess weight among the youngest generations.

"Getting youth to exercise in this country today is becoming an increasingly more common problem, and child obesity rates are rising dramatically," he said. "With a nationwide youth organization like 4-H taking steps to make youth more active it helps to remedy this problem."

As a member of varsity basketball, baseball, tennis and track teams, Greene believes that being part of a team "makes it a lot easier to exercise," he said. That's because "it always helps if you have someone else holding you accountable, in addition to yourself."

Since Walk Across Texas can be done as a team, that might encourage more young people to take active participation in this challenge, he said.

The duties of his office include encouraging other Texas 4-H'ers to be more physically active, which is something Greene takes seriously.

"I have always been interested in being physically active, and food and nutrition has been my main project for the past five years," he said.

At a recent Junior Leadership Retreat, he showed younger 4-H'ers how to find out how much sugar they actually consume. After reading the labels on soda cans, the 4-H'ers put the corresponding amount of sugar in plastic bags.

The experiment was an eye-opener, Greene said.

"Some 4-H'ers even realized that over the course of a year, they would consume more pounds of sugar – just from soda – than their body weight," he said.

"I love that 4-H is able to make learning fun, and how it uses recreation to teach leadership, communication, teamwork and other important skills," Greene said.

Texas 4-H'ers can also use that spirit of fun, communication and teamwork to ‘Walk Across Texas' in celebration of the organization's 100th birthday, he said.

Greene, son of Robert and Pipeir Greene, is home schooled and taking dual credit classes at Mountain View Community College. As a member of 4-H for seven years, his projects have included clothing and textiles, consumer decision making, leadership, public speaking and citizenship.