 My name is Katie Jett and I'm a 4-H state ambassador for Alabama and here with me I have Mr. Kenneth Gamble who's a foundation regional extension agent for Morgan and Lawrence County. Hello Ms. Jett. How you doing? I am doing great. Wonderful day. All right well I have a couple of questions for you. So the first one is just tell me a little bit about your job. Well with my job I've been working 29 almost 30 years. It'll be 30 years on October 1st. This is the only job I've ever had coming out of college. So I'd like to know I've been here a while and everything's been pretty good for me. Been doing 4-H the entire time of my years of service. I've done some other things in extension but 4-H has been longevity. Mm-hmm. Well what was your major in college? Well that's a little bit strange. I'm gonna have to tell you a little story to tell you about my major. All right. Okay with my major I started out in agribusiness education. I took all of my agricultural courses and I started on my educational courses and I was told that I couldn't take any of my educational courses without taking the state test. So it was either take a semester out of school or change my major. So I spoke to my supervisor who agreed with me it was okay to change my major. So I went from agribusiness education to agribusiness non-teaching with a minor in mechanization. So I did that because we hear about so many statistics where people when they go home for semesters it's hard for them to get back in school and so life changes for them. Sometimes for the better and sometimes not so good and so I didn't want to become a statistic and so I just chose to stay in school and change my major which it set me back maybe one year in my scheduled graduation time but all in all I think I made the best move. Yes sir. Well can you tell me what a day like what a day is like at your job? Whoa a day? I don't know if every day or every week is the same. It's different quite often but for the most part you prepare yourself to teach young people a life skill I would say and so you do a lot of I guess you can say researchers on the internet and reading and trying to find out ways that you can teach young people at the same time teaching them hopefully making it enjoyable where whatever it is that you're trying to get to them whatever information you're getting to them that they can have fun at the same time because it's never been said that education can't be fun and so we're not in a school setting all the time and so you just try to make things different but at the same time fun. Well you kind of touched on this nice question but what prompted you to go into this field? What prompted me? I'm a people person anytime you're going to do anything working with other people you got to know what your skill set is. I am a people person and I'll have to talk I love to find out or learn about the history of the background of people I'm involved with. When I was in college I was around a lot of foreign students and it was just enjoyable to me to know their background and how different it was for minds and so that's just intrigued me just talking to people and learning about the different lifestyles that we do have even with the young people you know I didn't come off a form so learning about how their form life was some may be inner city a much larger city and so learn about that lifestyle so all of it is different and intriguing to me but at the same time I just enjoyed you know talking and just enjoy talking to young people adults it doesn't matter to me just holding that conversation. The same way that might be something that I'm interested in when I get to college and after college looking for a job but would you recommend your job to other people? Yes yes yes it's a job that if you're interested in like I said speaking being created that's another thing you have the opportunity to be very creative. Flexible you know you you got to be a little flexible because things don't always go as planned so you got to learn to be flex flexible you got to be a planner you got to plan ahead of time you also have to hopefully get an account for things not going your way what do you do next and sometimes it has to be by the fly you know that okay it didn't go so what am I going to do now because you can start a PowerPoint PowerPoint doesn't work so what do you do next you got to be prepared for things like that if you don't go your way so yeah I mean if you can handle things like that you'll love it. Well it seems that you do really enjoy your job but is it ever stressful? Oh yes you have your stressful days and it doesn't always have to be the job you know just sometimes you just wake up life just seems tough on you. It can you know kind of weigh on you even at work it doesn't just go away but the thing of it is you know there is a tomorrow and you have a chance to get it right so yes stressful days do happen but you try not you try your best not to put that on someone else's you know someone else day to make their day bad because you having a bad day you kind of sometimes have to step back and say okay I can't do that to the other person or I need to go somewhere and just kind of relax for a minute maybe it's a cup of coffee maybe it just being one-on-one with yourself in isolation but you have to stand back and you know get yourself together say okay now I'm ready and yoga is a good thing for that. Yes well I guess this is a question for me I'm just curious were you in 4-H as a youth? Yes I was I was in 4-H from 4th grade through the 8th grade I was either president I think I was president every year except for the 6th grade which I was a vice president but every other year all the other years I was a president I can remember making my baked foods my first competition I did call me a month I got second place I learned how to tie my neck tie through 4-H so those are some life skills that I still am to this day so 4-H taught me a lot how to get up and speak in front of a cloud in front of my peers and again to this day I still remember from 4-H learning to do the neck tie. Well this also kind of touches on the next question that I was about to ask you but in which ways is 4-H helped you grow as a person from being the youth competitions and now having a lifelong job that you really love how does it help to grow you? Help to grow me because you develop a love of helping people seeing other people succeed and in doing that you want to continue to do that and you learn a little bit of patience that's not always a gift you got to sometime teach yourself to be patient because everybody progress differently and so you have to learn that skill set and I enjoy seeing others on you know being successful you know and success is all the individual of what they want in life and so as long as they feel like they are successful and I can have a part of helping them get to that point I love it. Well is seeing those kids grow up and be successful is that the most rewarding thing about your job or is there other rewarding things you got to tell us about? It's probably the most rewarding but the memories is ranked just as high of seeing them from fourth grade and now as an adult and as an adult I have their children that I'm working with now. I don't want to be an extension as long enough to say I'm working with grandchildren but children yes that's okay so yes just seeing there be seeing them being successful and the memories I've had with them. Well do you have a specific memory or funny story or anything about 4-H that has happened in the 50 years that you can think of that you'd like to share? I'm going to keep that one. I think I'm going to keep that one but I do I have somewhere I'll share this one when I started off with extension I guess I had been working in probably about eight years close to ten years somewhere between eight and ten years and I was at a state competition and state leaders said it was time for everybody to go to their room and so as I'm ushering my 4-Hers to the room and others who was just standing in the hallway one of the other older agents at that time told me say isn't it time for you to be in your room why are you standing in the hall? I said I'm not a 4-Hers I'm an agent and they didn't believe me and so another agent who knew me just happened to turn the corner and say yes he is an agent because they didn't believe me they so they thought I was one of the 4-Hers because I didn't look old enough to be an agent so that's a fun memory. Alright well I guess my last question for you is what advice would you give the youth interested in your job? Advice. Know is something that you want to do think about it seriously knowing that you want to help others that's got to be something that's within you that you want to see others succeed and you want to be a part of that and having them. The thing is wanting to be a teacher but you also have that creative side of expressing you know your love for teaching so being a little creative a love for helping others those are the two biggest thing I think you got to have. Well is there anything else you'd like to tell us about or share with us? I've enjoyed my time in 4-H I really am so that's the biggest thing for me just if you enjoy your job you when you wake up you don't mind going to as you would call it work but you got to enjoy it you know if it's something that you don't enjoy then it's not for you but I I've enjoyed all of my time in 4-H I really have. Well thank you for speaking to us and telling us a little bit about what you've done in your 4-H career and I look forward to seeing what my career leads me into so thank you. You're welcome.