4-H Radio Promotion

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When the National Committee on Boys and Girls Club Work (later National 4-H Council) was started in late 1921, it basically consisted of a staff of one person – Guy Noble – working at a "desk on loan" in the Chicago headquarters offices of the American Farm Bureau, with the assistance of a part-time secretary – also on loan. With some help, contributions were secured in 1922 from Meredith Publishing Company, Wilson and Company, International Harvester Company, Montgomery Ward and the Chicago Board of Trade.

In addition to the overwhelming burden of raising funds in unchartered waters... and, planning and managing the major national 4-H annual event, the National 4-H Congress, Guy Noble also knew that it was critical to promote the concept of 4-H to broader audiences if it was to grow. During the World War I years, 4-H enrollment dropped by over 50 percent. Noble was intrigued by this new media called "radio." So as early as 1922... before it was even a year old, the National Committee on Boys and Girls Club Work became a radio pioneer.

Noble made arrangements with the Westinghouse Radio Service of Chicago for news of boys and girls club work to be presented each Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 6 p.m. In 1922 there were only 30 radio stations in the country and a quarter million receiving sets scattered across the nation.

Meredith publishing gave the radio broadcasts prominent play in its special publication, Boys and Girls Club Leader. "Club members having wireless receiving sets and others who can arrange to listen in on a neighbor's set... will hear something interesting and spicy about club work," the magazine promised in the May 1922 issue. Within a couple of years the National Committee on Boys and Girls Club Work, partnering with Extension, USDA, were providing boys and girls club work programming on a regular basis on all three major networks. Every evening program at National 4-H Congress was broadcast across the country "so that delegates' parents, neighbors and friends could listen in."

In 1929 a National 4-H Radio Party was held during National 4-H Camp, including a welcome by Dr. C. W. Warburton, director of Extension, and music by the United States Marine Band orchestra. The hour long program was broadcast over the National Broadcasting Company. Additional National 4-H Radio Parties were held for several years.

1926 seemed to be the start of many state college radio stations, particularly land-grant institutions, offering their 4-H staffs air time to promote boys and girls club work and 4-H events around the state. Throughout most of the 1920s, National 4-H News was carrying the schedules of radio broadcasts, and now also included the state programs. For decades, county Extension staffs and state information staffs embraced radio, providing regular programs or information to nearly every rural radio station in America. Stations which had farm broadcasters on staff, also became "best friends" with 4-H. 4-H and radio, in some aspects, grew up together. Radio is one of the integral parts of 4-H history.

Starting in 1965, the National 4-H Service Committee started distributing 4-H celebrity spots for radio... a popular service that lasted for a number of years. In 1978, the full year after merger, the National 4-H Council Communications Division subscribed to a national radio network service. The resulting feature placement was nearly $100,000 worth of additional national coverage, reaching a potential audience of 79,800,000 people in the United States and overseas. 1978 also saw the quarterly mailings of live radio public service copy to every station in the country being instituted.

For the complete history of 4-H and Radio, visit the section on the 4-H history website: