It's Easy Keeping Him Down on the Farm

Michael Cropp was practically born among his family's cattle. On a rainy December night in 1994, his mother, Michele, whose jacket wouldn't zip over her pregnant belly, spent the night before she went into labor fixing a fence to keep the herd from running away. She was so tired from the repair job that she slept through most of his birth.

Since then, 12-year-old Michael and his cattle have been practically inseparable. After years of eager waiting, Michael finally joined the county's 4-H club at age 9 and was able to show steers at the annual Montgomery County Fair. For the fourth year, the family will join Michael at the fair, where he will show four steers, a cow and calf, two hogs, four lambs and four goats.

"It's our main family vacation, but we also get to introduce people who have never been to the fair to an animal, who have never known pigs are so sweet and kind and love peanuts," Michele Cropp said. "There's a lot of educating you can do. It's really meaningful. . . . They had no idea meat comes from one of these. It doesn't come from the Giant."

Michael says he doesn't let nerves or hard work get in the way of a good time.

"It always gives me the jitters, but I guess I'm a little bit of a pro," he said. "The pigs are probably the easiest to show because you follow them around the ring, and the goats are affectionate, and the cows are just fun because I know them the best and I've had them the longest."

Although agriculture has taken a back seat to the county's other industries, 4-H officials say the number of youngsters such as Michael who show farm animals at the Montgomery County fair in Gaithersburg has remained relatively stable in the past 20 years. Some species, such as dairy cattle, have dipped while others, such as horses and dogs, have risen. This year roughly half of the county's 900 4-H members will show animals, baked goods, computer projects and arts and crafts at the event, which starts tomorrow and runs until Aug. 18.

Nationally, 4-H serves 9 million members. The four H's stand for head, heart, hands and health.

Jeannie Raines, program assistant and fair liaison for the Montgomery 4-H office, has seen her organization modernize: Some of its urban members keep animals in friends' farms, and the clubs have branched out into computer projects such as building Web sites or designing newspaper pages.

"I just think that 4-H has changed with the times, and has made itself more available to urban kids and city kids so they can participate," Raines said. "It's not just about animals and farms and rural living."

Parents credit the Montgomery 4-H with teaching its members, ages 8 to 18, important life skills: public speaking, responsibility, independence and organization.

Francine Waters, who lives on two acres in mid-county, attributes much of her daughter's success to 4-H. Eve, 18, is heading to Cornell University this month to study animal sciences after nine years of showing rabbits around the country with skills she cultivated in the 4-H club.

"When Eve first started she was shy. She was not confident, and she was an OK student," Francine Waters said. After joining the club, where she judged rabbits, showed her animals and eventually became president, "She really blossomed. She went from an A, B student to a straight-A student. . . . She worked very hard. I think 4-H was the basis for all of it."