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While yelling, “Go Vols,” is something college students do every day as part of life on the University of Tennessee campus in Knoxville, during a week over the summer each year, a group of younger individuals have the opportunity to experience the college life also.

More than 150 Tennessee Junior High 4-H members, in grades 6-8 descended on the UT campus in Knoxville the week of June 11-14 to take part in the 36th Tennessee Junior High 4-H Academic Conference. The purpose of the conference is to recognize outstanding 4-H members and leaders, provide academic training related to the 4-H members’ project areas, offer opportunities for career exploration in agriculture and family and consumer sciences, meet other 4-H members with similar interests or in the same project area and to experience campus life firsthand.

Participants from Coffee County included Samantha Johnson, Ashleigh Johnson, Beau Teal, Elliott Weaver, Maggie Gunn, and Bailee Arnwine

During the spring, youth were encouraged to apply to attend the conference in one of the 21 following project areas: beef, citizenship communication/public speaking, companion animals, computers & technology, consumer education, creative arts & design, dairy cattle, entrepreneurship, food science and dairy foods, forestry/wildlife/fisheries, goat, horticulture/gardening. Horse, nutrition/health/fitness, outdoor recreation/shooting sports, performing arts, poultry, sheep and swine.

Ten finalists in each project area were chosen to attend the immersive experience on the UT campus. In addition to deep-diving into hands-on activities led by subject matter experts in their project areas, the youth also visited Neyland Stadium, Main Event in Knoxville, the UT Gardens, a number of departments in the Herbert College of Agriculture on the UT campus, and participated in a graduation ceremony at the Foundry at World’s Fair Park. They resided in the Robinson Hall Residence as well, and the 8th grade participants had an opportunity to meet Dr. Robinson.

Tennessee Junior High 4-H Academic Conference is sponsored by the Tennessee Farmers Cooperative, Tennessee Pork Producers Association, the Tennessee 4-H Foundation, and the UT Institute of Agriculture. For more information about future 4-H events and programs across the state of Tennessee, please contact UT Extension – Coffee County at 931-723-5141.