How the 4-H Shooting Sports Program Turned Jack Rogers into a Leader
Ask Jack Rogers what he got most out of National 4-H Shooting Sports Program and he’ll tell you it brought the once-shy boy “out of my shell.”
Now 18, Jack was introduced to a North Carolina National 4-H Shooting Sports program at age 10 by his father, Mark, who also participated as a boy.
“The 4-H changed my life,” Jack said. “I used to be extremely shy. Now I’m running the club and helping new clubs. I’m helping other shy kids – it’s life skills, teaching people to be polite, speak properly, kind of old school.”
Although Jack had started hunting as youngster, he was looking for other outdoor ventures when his father introduced him to the 4-H Shooting Sports Program. Despite Jack’s initial reserve, he eventually became involved with the 30-plus-member strong Orange County Backroads Sharpshooters out of Hillsborough, North Carolina.
As the 4-H describes it, the purpose of their Shooting Sports Program is to the provide a national leadership body made up of 4-H professionals to guide state 4-H shooting sports programs in alignment with national 4-H goals that oversees national competitive events, offers professional development opportunities, and trains volunteers in researched and applied best practices in positive youth development.
Its goal, they say, is to support and train state 4-H Shooting Sports Program volunteers and Extension personnel in positive youth development, youth representation, leadership, and civic engagement, STEM learning, inclusion of underserved audiences, healthy living, and positive experiences. The National 4-H Strategic Plan outlines successful programming by providing effective organizational systems, access, equity, and opportunity, extraordinary opportunities to learn, and exceptional people/innovative practices. Local 4-H Shooting Sports clubs are open to all youth ages 8 to 18. Each year, 4-H teaches a shooting sport to about 500,000 boys and girls each year.
Apparently, it was a job well-done by the 4-H for Jack. “The 4-H has given me a lot of confidence,” he said.
The 4-H Shooting Sports Program’s age limit encourages upcoming rank and file members to constantly evolve as group and community leaders. The age ceiling of 18 gives lots of younger participants ongoing opportunities to develop leadership skills that become available as others age out of their volunteer positions in the local organizations. That happened to Jack, when the group’s leaders turned 19. In anticipation of the impending vacancies, Jacked earned his certification to become his club’s co-leader – although he’ll to leave that position on his nineteenth birthday.
Still, Jack can remain involved like his father, Jerry, who is the group’s shotgun coach. Jack, already a shotgun coach, is close to earning his certification as an archery coach as well.
Over the years, through his involvement in the group’s training and tournament disciplines of pistols, shotguns, archery and rifles, Jack has made “hundreds of friends,” he said. As it turned out, Jack met his current girlfriend on the Orange County Backroads Sharpshooters shotgun team.
Jack and his sister, Ella, who recently turned 19, were also on the same shotgun and recurve archery teams where they scored top prizes individually and as team members.
Meanwhile, Jack continues his own hunting pursuits. By his own admission, he says “I hunt just about everything.” Jack, his father and uncle hunt deer in upstate New York and Virginia on land that the family either owns or leases. Since turning 16, he can now legally hunt deer on his own in some states. His avid hunting schedule also includes turkey, goose, duck, dove, crow and bear.
Jack is big into fishing, too. He holds licenses in six states and Ontario, Canada.
His next quest is saddle hunting, where instead of tree stand you sit in a specialized harness, or saddle.
“We have a freezer-full of meat,” Jack said, and for the past two years the Rogers family has donated processed deer meat to a church.
Now Jack is adding one more undertaking to his full schedule: college. He’s starting his first semester at Wake Tech Community College where he’ll major in construction management.
It will be a departure from his home-schooling education, but he’s fully confident that his experience in the 4-H Shooting Sports Program will be of great help.
“Those sports improved my concentration and focus and my time management between practicing for tournaments with the 4-H and school.”
Jack sounds like he’s on the path to continue the Rogers’ family legacy with the 4-H Shooting Sports Program.
Irwin Greenstein is the publisher of the online magazines Young Awesome Hunter and Shotgun Life at www.shotgunlife.com. You can reach him on the Young Awesome Hunter Facebook page and the Shotgun Life Facebook page.
Helpful resources:
The National 4H Shooting Sports web site
Irwin Greenstein is Publisher of Shotgun Life. Please send your comments to letters@shotgunlife.com.
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