4-H Alum and VSU Graduate Returns to Serve the Program That Helped Shape Her
For 123 years, 4-H has helped America’s youth grow and learn through hands-on experiences. As one of the most well-known Extension programs, 4-H brings the bold purpose to “empower young people with the skills to become confident, responsible and engaged citizens…all guided by the principles of ‘Head, Heart, Hands and Health.’” 4-H helps foster positive youth development and can leave a lasting impact on participants. Recent Virginia State University (VSU) graduate Ms. Desmyn Owens learned she could impact her community and has carried her 4-H experiences into her career. Earlier this summer, she was hired as the 4-H Extension agent for Virginia Beach, Virginia, where she is using her knowledge and leadership skills to impact the next generations of 4-H youth.
Desmyn Owens is from a rural community in Brunswick County, Virginia. Her parents are both career educators in Brunswick County Public Schools, and value education and community involvement. Desmyn and her siblings participated in a variety of activities growing up, including sports and 4-H. Many people think of the Livestock club and other traditional agriculture programs associated with 4-H, but 4-H offers so much more. “Jinx Baney was my 4-H Extension agent, and she served in that role for a long time,” Owens recalls. “She would come to our classroom to run different programs, and I would attend 4-H summer and weekend camps, too.” For Owens, 4-H was the first stop on her journey of learning about her capacity to impact the world around her. “4-H was the first time I saw an avenue for having and taking responsibility for the natural resources and youth in my community,” she says.
Owens looks back on weekend and summer camps as being formative experiences in her journey. “When I think about 4H camps at Holiday Lake, I think about it being a magical place,” she reflects. As a teenager, Owens, an honor student and athlete, joined the 4-H teen club and continued honing her leadership skills as a teen counselor for youth summer camps, where she gained experience working with diverse groups of people and embraced opportunities to give younger kids memorable and formative experiences of their own. “I was able to help create that magical place for the youth that came behind me,” she says. Owens hopes her campers learned they are capable of doing anything they set their mind to. 4-H uses experiential opportunities to help youth learn, which Owens believes is critical to empowering youth and growing their skills. “It was also important to me to be that welcoming presence for them, and show them that 4-H has a place for everybody,” Owens says.
Becoming a Trojan was an obvious next step for Owens after she graduated from high school. Two of her great uncles are former Trojans, and her older brother Darren graduated from VSU’s College of Agriculture (COA). A student athlete, Owens played softball at VSU for two years and used her experiences from her internships to help shape her eventual career focus. “Even though I’m from a rural area where agriculture was all around me, I didn’t quite realize how agriculture is in everything.” Owens received a Food and Agriscience scholarship at VSU, the purpose of which is to expand agriculture studies to students from different backgrounds. She joined COA and dove into experiential learning through internships.
After her sophomore year, she took an internship with Professor and Extension Specialist for Sustainable and Urban Agriculture Dr. Leonard Githinji and Rachel Lawmaster, a program assistant for VCE’s Urban Agriculture Program at VSU. They conducted a study in a greenhouse, trialing production capacities for Portuguese Kale in different growth media. “We presented our research at the spring Association of 1890 Research Directors symposium, and I earned third place for my poster for that,” Owens recalls. “Working in a greenhouse was a new experience, and working with Dr. Githinji also opened my eyes to urban agriculture.” She then took an internship with Dr. Woods, the associate extension administrator for VCE at VSU, where Owens gained experience in a wide array of Extension program areas. She helped provide vaccine education at community outreach events, was a counselor for VSU’s 2024 AgDiscovery program, created pamphlets to help Extension agents use COA’s interactive blender bikes and worked with Youth Development Extension Associate Nicole Swinson to bolster Petersburg’s 4-H programs. “Those experiences gave me a chance to see that I could have a career path working with youth and other people.”
One consistent takeaway from Owens’ experiences with 4-H as a child, a teenager and her subsequent experiences with Extension internships at VSU is how to work with different people and accept everyone. “You never know what people are going through, what might be contributing to acting a certain way on a certain day, especially with youth,” she says. “Growing up through 4-H and my internship experiences at VSU helped develop my ability to give grace and see things from different perspectives.”
Now, Owens has come full circle with 4-H, as she dives into her new role and sets goals to bring positive 4-H experiences to all the youth of Virginia Beach. Camp attendance rates have been down since 2020, and most participants are from a more rural background. “I have a passion for giving youth opportunities so they aren’t left behind,” says Owens. “We can push our program in Virginia Beach into more urban areas and show youth that everyone can have a place in 4-H.” To that end, Owens will re-establish the teen club and reach out to youth who may not feel they belong in 4-H, and build on the success of the popular livestock club, craft club, shooting sports and horse clubs. She’s hopeful that she can soon establish a partnership with the Virginia Beach Master Gardeners and collaborate with their youth programs, and is excited to have a large pool of volunteers eager to dedicate their time and skills as well as opportunities to collaborate with agencies, businesses and organizations in Virginia Beach’s urban areas that can help bridge the program into new spaces. With deep roots in the program herself, Owens is committed to expanding not just 4-H’s reach, but inspiring more young people to lead, learn and thrive with 4-H.
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