Teresa Taylor — Staff Writer
In the summer of 2021, the SDSU 4-H Extension Office in Winner gained a part-time assistant, Ryan Sell. In 2022, shortly after graduating from Winner High School, he applied and interviewed through SDSU for the full-time position.
Sell spent his time at the Extension Office answering phone calls, assisting with workshops, mailing reminders, and preparing for the Mid Dakota Fair.
Over the first half of the summer, the 4-H Extension Office hosted 13 workshops. Sell assisted with eleven and led two. Nearly all of the workshops filled their capacities, and several had waiting lists.
In May, he supervised Cloverbuds (ages 5-7) building wooden derby cars and helped them race their cars on a track borrowed from the Boy Scouts.
“At the first workshop, none of the parents stayed, and I could barely control them,” Sell said.
The Cloverbuds’ parents stayed for his next workshop in June, and it ran much more smoothly. Sell oversaw a successful Cloverbud Project Day. They made chalk, designed bean art, and painted clay pots. Each Cloverbud planted a flower, and Sell encouraged them to keep it alive for the Mid Dakota Fair.“They can go to the fair, put their items in the corner, not do any paperwork, and still get ribbons,” Sell said.
The Mid Dakota Fair ran Aug. 2 through 6. The previous Friday, Sell and Debby Steinke began setting up and decorating. At the fair, Sell worked to ensure the events ran smoothly, managed late entries, and announced for small animals.
When Sell was younger, the inflatables were his favorite part of the fair. This year, his favorite part was seeing all the people.
“I got to see a lot of people who I remembered or who remembered me when I was littler,” Sell said. “It’s like going to school. You hate it because you have to do all the work, but the one silver lining is that you see your friends every day.”
August 12 will be Sell’s last day at the Extension Office. The following week, he will start his first year at Dakota State University for computer science.
“This last week will be spent mostly decompressing and getting everything out of the 4-H Center and back to the office,” Sell said. “If you think about it, my whole job was one big build up to the fair, fair happened, and now the last week will be spent cleaning up.”
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