4-H speeches

It appears there is a 4-H event for everything. I haven't found the cold-fusion projects yet, but I'm sure they're here. Anyway, for those of you keeping track at home, be sure to add public speaking to the list of 4-H undertakings.


So I got to listen to two young men give presentations this morning.



Cody Wafford, 12, of Sandy was up first. His short talk was about General Motor's OnStar communications, security, navigation and diagnostics service. Besides being informative, I was struck with Cody's poise. He also scored a good laugh when he said that the nice thing about OnStar is that they don't hang up on you like an angry ex-girlfriend.

Cody Wafford during his presentation about OnStar services.

Mark Geisler, 12, of Aurora was up next. His presentation was titled - let me check my notes to make sure I get this right - Coccidiosis in Ruminants.

It seems like kids won't talk about anything else these days - coccidiosis this and coccidiosis that. Nevertheless, Mark did a pretty good job making the subject fresh and interesting.

But seriously, as if the topic wasn't impressive enough, Mark went on to give 8 1/2 minutes of scholarly dissertation on this horrible affliction which is afflicting large numbers of animals of the ruminant variety. His presentation included microscope images of the blobby little buggers responsible for symptoms including a host of digestive system unpleasantries.

Death was also a possible symptom if I recall correctly.

Properly warmed up, the audience was itching to know which medication they should use for coccidiosis. I wouldn't have wanted to wade into the whole Ablon vs. Corid controversy, but Mark tackled it head-on.

He had a perfectly prepared bibliography and made a point to publicly acknowledge the vetrinarians and various experts and diginitaries he used as references.

My faviorite visual aid was the excellent three-dimensional "Life Cycle of Coccidia" display.

And before you ask, of course it listed the sub-clinical, clinical and external phases.

And yes, he got a blue ribbon.

Life cycle of coccidia display. (Clinical phase in purple.)