BZ—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, September 10,1983
4-H‘ers Blossom
With Donna's Coaching
BY BETH HEMMI vSER
Staff Correspondent
When it comes to flowers Donna
Duncan is in full bloom!
For 12 years, Donna has been the
Cumberland County 4-H flower
judging coach as well as the 4-H
horticulture and vegetable teams
coach. Both the horticulture and
vegetable teams were organized
later in Donna’s coaching career.
Donna’s career wasn’t started in
Cumberland County, though.
Adams County’s 4-H program
claimed Donna as a coach for a few
short years.
However, Donna and her
husband, Duane, moved to
Cumberland County upon his
acceptance of the position of
county agent of the Cumberland
County Cooperative Extension
Service. But, regardless of the
move, Donna wanted to continue
her involvement in the flower
judging program - and did.
With a well-rounded 4-H
program in the county, Donna had
little trouble encouraging three
plant-loving 4-H’ers to sign their
name on the dotted line and
become the 1971 Cumberland
County 4-H flower judging team.
With only a few years of
coaching under her belt, Donna
was learning right along with her
new-found team.
Donna remarked, “You kind of
grow with the competition over the
years, so to speak.”
Donna recalled that her first
team did quite well in the com
petition.
“They were all new at judging, I
was still learning about judging,
and they placed fifth in the state
competition. I think it was quite an
accomplishment for beginners/!
she said.
Over the years, the competition
has changed and so has Donna.
The state competition changes
frequently in its pattern of
questions and judging routine.
While Donna hasn’t changed
frequently, but has grown from a
novice coach of 12 years ago to a
pro of the flower garden.
Few paid-professional coaches
can claim what this one volunteer
coach has done in the past 12 years.
Donna has coached 12 flower
judging teams, with six of those
teams winning the first place
medal in the state competition.
With those six top-place teams,
they have retired two trophies into
the halls of the Cumberland County
Extension Office. Once a county
has claimed three years on the
plaque it remains in the county.
The trophies are engraved and
presented to the yearly winners by
the Dauphin County Council of
Extension Garden Clubs.
-re. Cumberland County 4-H flower judging team, first-place winners in the state
competition, discuss the details of the trip to the Junior Horticulture Convention being
held in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
What is the formula for such
success? According to Donna and
this year’s winning team - hard
work. Just to give an idea of the
time and effort spent, the coach
read over the past several months
itinerary of the group. Their
itinerary consisted of evening
meetings once, or more likely,
twice a week, attending fairs and
judging the flower entries and
visiting greenhouses and florists.
Donna remarked, “It takes a lot
of hard studying to learn to identify
flowers, answer management
questions and place classes. The
four-girl team nodded in
agreement.
Donna explained specifically
what the team learns during the
months of preparation. The weekly
practices begin with flower
identification, which means the
team must learn to identify over
100 annuals. Donna noted that not
all the flowers are in bloom during
the practice and judging months,
and some are not easily grown in
the area so each team member
uses picture cards. The cards show
a close-up of each flower, which
enables the girls to identify all the
100 flowers either by petal, pistol
or foliage. Along with the cards,"
Donna takes it one step further.
She hunts down the real thing and
tries to show the team what each
flower looks like in the garden.
At the state competition, each
member of the team has to identify
only 30 flowers out of the 100.
The second part of the com
petition consists of questions on the
management of the flower garden.
The team studies over 100
questions, selected from flower
and horticulture project books, but
they only have to answer 30
questions at the competition.
And the final section of the
contest consists of placing a group
of house plants or flowers in a 1 - 2 -
3 - 4 class placing. Donna stated
that the class placings are based
on the marketability of the plant or
flower at that time. Donna teaches
the team good and bad
marketability characteristics such
as maturity of the plant, color, root
systems, and overall appearance.
“This is not an easy task,”
Donna remarked. “The other parts
of the competition have a definite
answer, but the classes have a lot
of variables and can be quite
difficult.”
The team nodded in agreement
to their coaches statement, but
they all had a gleam of happiness
in their eyes.
The all-knowing coach saw this
glint of joy and remarked, “They
know their work is done and now
they’re ready and excited about
planning their trip.”
The first place flower judging team in the state displays their engraved plaques
received after winning the competition at Penn State. From left are Brenda Wert, first
place individual, Andrea Gutshall, Deanna Otto, Oede King and coach Donna Duncan.
Yes, for Dede King, Deanna
Otto, Brenda Wert and Andrea
Gutshall the excitement is not
quite over yet. All the long hours of
studying, studying, studying have
payed off. The first-place winners
in the state 4-H flower judging
competition are invited to attend
the National Junior Horticulture
Convention and participate in the
activities. This year the team will
be traveling to Tulsa, Okla. from
October 28 to November 1. This is
not an expense-paid trip for the
team, consequently, they have to
raise money through donations and
fund raisers. However, said
Donna, from past experiences with
the other teams who travelled to
Biloxi, Miss.; Salem. N. C.,
Atlanta, Ga., just to name a few,
the convention and trip are well
worth the efforts.
Donna stated that the trip is just
not only for enjoyment, but quite
educational. This year’s team
members will enjoy seeing a part
of the United States they have
never seen before, will leam about
the vegetation and plant life of the
mid-west and meet people who
have interests and careers in the
horticulture industry.
After 12 years of rigorous
coaching activities, trip planning
and organization, what next for
this super coach?
Donna stated,
same!”
Donna is also the coach for the 4-
H horticulture and vegetable
judging teams. The horticulture
contest is much more involved in
that the team has to leam to
identify ornamentals, flowers,
fruits and nuts, and, vegetables
along with answering
management questions and
placing classes in each of the four
categories mentioned.
The 4-H vegetable judging
contest follows the same pattern as
the others, but only deals with
vegetables. The team members
must be able to identify vegetables
“More of the
ig jpi judging es a lot 01
hard work and careful planning for Oonna Duncan, who
coached the team to success.
from the roots, the plants, the fruit,
and the seed.
Donna has also coached several
of her horticulture and vegetables
teams to winning the first place
medal in the state 4-H competition.
However, right now her thoughts
are on planning the trip to Tulsa,
but once it is over it will soon be
time to think of the next year’s
teams and Donna stated that she is
ready.
“I find a great satisfaction in
teaching the 4-H’ers about the
beauty that is around them and
how they should care for it and use
it,” Donna said. “Flowers,
vegetables, fruits, nuts, or
namentals are always useful to
some part of your life, now and
later.”
And as for the super coach,
Donna Duncan, she said she will
keep coaching as long as the 4-
H’ers want her, and it appears that
the kids do want her.