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4-H Skateboarding Club Rolling in Bath County
4-H Skateboarding Club Rolling in Bath County
By
Jeff
Franklin
Owingsville, Ky., (Oct. 24, 2007) – A new 4-H skateboarding club
is changing people’s perceptions in Bath County. Young people
who hang out at what is called “the mill”, the site of a former
livestock feed mill in Owingsville where skateboarders and
rollerbladers gather, say local residents have a preconceived
attitude toward them. But since Terence Clemons, of the
University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service, started a
skateboard club for the young people a more positive image has
emerged.
“We plan and do activities to show their skills and loyalty to
skateboarding, but we also do community service projects,” said
the Bath County 4-H youth development agent. “We do everything
from clean up property to demonstration activities for nursing
homes, for the city, things like that. We do a lot of things
around the 4-H way of learning.”
Doing other activities besides skateboarding, such as community
service projects, has changed people’s attitudes toward the
young people, and parents have bought into the idea. When the
club holds its monthly meeting at the mill, parents of club
members are there to support them. Stephanie Mann’s 10-year-old
son Jesse is in the skateboard club. She sees it as a good
alternative for kids who don’t participate in traditional
sports.
“I think it’s really great,” she said. “It gives a chance for
kids who aren’t involved in football, basketball and baseball to
get some fresh air, exercise and be involved in a group sport.
They have a lot of fun with it.”
Clemons said the club started in April with 16 members, and
since has grown to more than 50, most of whom are boys with a
few girls mixed in. They range in age from about 8 to 18. The
club is like any other 4-H club with officers and annual
membership dues. Members say being part of the club has helped
them be more accepted in their community.
“If you go up to somebody and tell them you’re part of the
skateboard club, they know it’s all right,” said club member
Corey Lykins, a Bath County High School student. “They don’t
think you’re such a bad kid anymore, because you’re a part of
something.”
Fellow club member Cary Anderson, also a student at Bath County
High agrees. “It gives us a good name. We do stuff and people
watch us,” he said referring to their skateboarding
demonstrations, “and they sort of realize we aren’t up to no
good all the time.”
One club member said skateboarders used to get in trouble with
the police, but since joining the skateboard club that hasn’t
happened.
“It’s kept us out of a lot of trouble with the police,” said
Brandon Temple, a skateboard club member. “Being at the mill,
having our own little spot to skate, we used to get in more
trouble before the club came around.”
Club members even designed a t-shirt with the club name on it in
purple, black and white. The name “pure” appears across the
chest in capital purple letters on the black t-shirt, with the
words “purely skateboarding” in small white letters underneath.
Clemons says the shirt refers to just what these young people
are doing, practicing the pure art of skateboarding.
After forming the club last spring, members skated in the annual
May Day parade in Owingsville as a group, which was a source of
pride for one club member.
Clemons said, “This kid told me, ‘I am so proud to be a part of
a club. This is the first time I have ever been part of a club,’
and that says a whole lot.”
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Contact: Terence Clemons, 606-674-6121
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