What's with 4-H, WSU Extension in Lincoln County?

You may have heard rumors that local funding for these programs could be in jeopardy. That was true on several fronts, but those issues were resolved before the holidays.

The County has had an Interagency Agreement with WSU for many years whereby the County provides both direct funding support through tax dollars and in-kind support from the use of a County building, in exchange for Extension and 4-H programming and services. Last fall, WSU notified the County that they were required to alter the terms of that agreement because of Governor’s Proclamation 21-14.2, which mandated that any County employee assigned to the WSU office who would be working with the public in that County-owned building would need to be vaccinated. This presented a very big problem. Lincoln County does not, and will not, condition employment on any personal, private medical decisions that its employees choose to make. We were able to work with WSU Extension to resolve this predicament so that Lincoln County employees will not be subject to that mandate.

Similar to the WSDOT “Adopt-a-Highway” volunteers, who so willingly give their time to keep our roadsides free of trash, 4-H volunteers also are subject to these same unconstitutional, authoritarian edicts handed down by the regime in Olympia. Even better…, say you are a school teacher who filed for, and was approved for a religious exemption from the experimental injection. Now you want to become a 4-H volunteer. Well guess what? WSU doesn’t recognize your employer’s exemption. You will have to file again and be subjected to WSU’s own criteria for an exemption, which includes a review panel. Once the exemption is approved, 4-H faculty must decide if the exemption can be accommodated as not all can be. That didn’t work out so well for their football coach, did it? To their credit, WSU has implemented a very liberal exemption policy for 4-H volunteers and also have a mechanism for those who may not want the vaccine to be placed in inactive status for one year to allow time for further developments in COVID guidance.

Another significant issue with 4-H is, that at the state and national levels, 4-H has increased its focus on inclusiveness and hence on ideologies such as Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Social Justice, Gender Identity, Critical Race Theory, promoting the LGBTQ+ agenda and making sure everyone addresses each other with ones preferred pronouns. The 4-H’s stand for Head, Heart, Hands and Health. Within these 4-H’s, there are many awesome values to teach our youth. Local 4-H groups have always been very accepting and accommodating to ALL those who want to participate, and the Commissioners questioned why there is such a concerted effort among some groups to fundamentally change what 4-H is.

The obvious answer, is that normalizing and promoting certain behaviors is becoming more and more prevalent in all aspects of our society. Instilling these alternative ideologies thru policy decisions into our youth is becoming an effective method of indoctrinating them into the extreme far-left agenda. Those that actively push such agendas, have found an easy target in youth groups like 4-H and Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, where things like traditional family values and basic biology are easily redefined to align with the ultra-liberal agenda.

The County facilitated two meetings with our local 4-H leaders to gather their input as to the future of the program. The general consensus was that the leaders have invested many years into these clubs, they have been a huge asset for our youth and communities and would hate to see the program end, so long as the focus remained on traditional 4-H approaches. Most felt that if these agendas were going to be pursued by WSU thru the 4-H program, that there would longer be an alignment of values and most clubs would not want to participate in activities that promote a leftist agenda.

Lincoln County had several meetings with representatives from WSU and state-level 4-H. We were assured in writing that WSU does not require Critical Race Theory training of anyone nor are they requiring alignment with any LGBTQ+ agenda or dress codes that promote the same. Although WSU does not currently have a dress code for 4-H, they are in the process of adapting one from the State of California and needless to say, we will keep a close eye on that. Since we have assurances that these liberal agenda items will not be part of any 4-H curriculum in Lincoln County, we are happy to report that we will be funding the WSU Extension Program and 4-H for the 2022 year.

This is good news for our local youth, as Lincoln County can now continue, in good conscience, investing tax dollars into a program which supports our youth and core family values and that sustains our rural way of life. With the help of our 4-H leaders, we need to continue to be watchful of these liberal ideologies that incrementally become socialist policies. Doing so assures that 4-H will continue to be a valuable program and that we can continue to support the youth who are so important to the future of our County.

– Rob Coffman is a Lincoln County Commissioner for District 3.