Hi everyone. What beautiful sunny days we have had. Although it was so cold … it was very nice to see the sun.

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With a new year beginning, I would like to take the time to say “Thank you” to our young people. What a great blessing it is to have so many young people who care about their community and the people in it. It would be impossible to list the names of all those who are so willing to help and truly love their community.

Today, as in years past, it remains the same in Valley Home … much like it was over 20 years ago. I look back over the years to some of our early events, such as our Easter egg hunts. Before our community park was built our older 4-Hers would color and decorate hundreds of eggs. I remember Austin Dickens, Jordan McCain, Nathan Soares, Luke Pouncey, and Garrett Byrhni and several others would hide the eggs for the younger kids to find in the school yard. One year I remember a very special egg was created by Bryce McKenzie … it was a beautiful golden egg. The kids had such fun looking for it.

In the fall, we were always blessed to have many, many young people willing to help. This year as always, we had an amazing group of young people who worked long hours to make our Harvest Festival a wonderful success.

Over the years I remember very fondly the Farquer brothers, Colton and Caden, the Kent brothers, Tanner and Travis, always helping with everything our Valley Home 4-H did. It brings a smile to my face to think of the times the Fletcher brothers, Sam and Ben, helped make so many events a reality. I look back and feel so proud of a very young Kevin Koppinger as he worked so hard to get everything ready for our first Lighted Christmas Parade.

At Christmastime, we once again were blessed to have many young people step up and help with the planning, and the work that went into making our Christmas light parade and the activities that followed so nice. I remember Cy Chrisman and the hard work he put into making our Valley Home events successful. Gunter Brisi is another young man that was important to making our events in Valley Home happen. There are so many young people to say thank you to; I will write about more of them very soon.

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As always, you may reach me by email at winniemullins51@gmail.com or by telephone at 209-985-5233.

Until next time, “Happy Trails to All!”