Teen makes most of summer
Four weeks seemed an eternity to Butler County 4-H’er Sara Lang as she debated whether to apply for the Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Agricultural Sciences at Penn State, a residential learning experience.
That was how long she would be gone — July 13 to Aug. 9 — and it meant leaving her family and farm animals and missing one of her favorite events of the year, the Butler Farm Show.
But she did apply and she was selected as one of 25 students to attend.
She said after the positive experience that “in just four short weeks” she made many new friends, traveled across the state and confirmed her desire to attend Penn State to study agriculture.
She said, “I wasn’t even convinced I wanted to go, but by the end of the first week I knew I wasn’t going to want to leave.”
Sara, daughter of Carrie and Larry Lang of Harrisville, is a senior at Moniteau High School. Her love of agriculture was born on the family’s 93-acre farm, where Sara raises breeding beef cattle and sheep and market steers, lambs and pigs.
“I went to Governor’s School knowing I wanted to go into ag sciences,” Sara said. “It helped me refine that and know exactly what I want to study — animal science with a business option with a minor in international agriculture.”
Governor’s School provides an overview of agriculture sciences and natural resources. Free to academically talented high school students, it is sponsored by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences and the state’s Intermediate Units.
The students live in dormitories on campus and participate in lab and classroom instruction. They also must complete a research-based service learning project.
Sara’s scholar team developed a lesson plan on pollination and native pollinators for the educators of the children’s garden at Penn State’s arboretum.
Many of the skills Sara gained through her Butler County 4-H experiences helped prepare her for Governor’s School, specifically self-discipline by keeping records on her project animals. She also credits the many friends and leaders involved in 4-H with helping raise and show her animals.
Because she missed the 4-H Roundup at the Butler Farm Show, several of her 4-H friends showed her animals in her absence. Because they did, her market animals could be sold in the Junior Livestock Sale, and she could complete her project work.
“Exhibiting in 4-H has been rewarding in so many ways that I could write a novel on it,” said Sara.
She is a member of the Butler County Premier Livestock and Beef Breeding clubs and is on the Youth Council.
She is considering applying for the State 4-H Council next year. If she does and is accepted, she would be the first person from Butler County to be on the state council.
Sara also stayed busy this summer as the Big Butler Fair Princess, after she was a Fair Ambassador last year.
She also is the secretary of the Moniteau High School FFA program, another agriculture youth development program that will allow Sara to continue showing her animals until she is 21.
Her family has taken her animals on the road for many regional shows, and she has exhibited at the Keystone International Livestock Expo in October and the Pennsylvania Farm Show in January at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex and Expo Center in Harrisburg.
Sara doesn’t take any of her opportunities for granted. From 4-H to Governor’s School, she said, “It was definitely a life-changing and motivating experience. I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world.”
Butler County has nearly 30 4-H clubs with more than 330 members.
For information about 4-H, contact Jean Kummer at the Extension Office at 724-287-4761, Ext. 224.
