Still going strong: Longtime 4-H leader enters more than three dozen exhibits

It was old home week at the 4-H and open-class building at the Flathead County fairgrounds on Tuesday as Marjorie Olsen rolled her wheelchair through the aisles, stopping for hugs and hellos from most everyone.

After 45 years as a 4-H club leader and most of a lifetime in the youth organization, 87-year-old Olsen is a fixture in the 4-H arena.

And she’s still an active open-class exhibitor.

“I think I had 39 exhibits this year,” she said, counting entries in her head. “I entered [canned] vegetables, fruits, meats, jams, toppings. Then there were dips, banana bread, gluten-free cookies... I have four or five crafts, or maybe more than that. I get good in them because I’m in the ‘Over 80’ category.”

Olsen initially thought she’d compete for the Open Class Exhibitor of the Year award this year. The high honor is given to the person with the most blue ribbons won in any of five or more open-class departments. She had a solid showing in four departments but had to scrap her floral and horticulture entries at the last minute.

“My flowers just weren’t good,” Olsen lamented.

Dana Higgins, one of Olsen’s three daughters, said the summer heat got the best of her mother’s flowers, adding that a recent family reunion had interrupted watering duties.

Olsen shrugged it off, the next moment delighting in the blue ribbon she saw tagged to one of her photography entries.

It was too early to tell how her canned goods had fared, but Olsen generally reaps a few blue ribbons.

“I’m still using my mother’s canner,” she said with pride. “It dates back to 1936, I think.”

She was worried about how her canned goods had turned out this year, though, because she was using a new stove she got just three weeks ago.

“I tried to burn my house down in June,” she said with a laugh, recalling a mishap while cooking rhubarb sauce.

Olsen inadvertently had left some papers on the stove that caught fire. Luckily, family members live nearby and came to her rescue on the double.

Olsen and her family are one of the Flathead County 4-H heritage families featured during this year’s centennial celebration of the 4-H program in Montana. The family’s 4-H involvement spans four generations, with a fifth generation on its way.

“I have a new great-great granddaughter born last summer and her daddy will see that she is a 4-H’er as well,” Olsen said.

Olsen became a 4-H member in the 1930s and still has the red-ribbon potholder she made as her first project.

She and her husband, Duane, who died 20 years ago, started the Country Cousins 4-H Club 45 years ago, and Olsen has been a leader ever since. She intends to step down this fall because her hearing isn’t as good as it once was.

“I can’t hear the little ones,” she said, “but I’ll still be making cupcakes and cookies for special meetings.”

A 4-H centennial publication that featured the Olsen family noted the family “bleeds 4-H green.”

All three of the Olsens’ daughters — Dana Higgins, Cheryl Timlick and Kayleen Bristow — were active in 4-H, and Higgins currently is the leader of the Country Cousins. Many grandchildren and great-grandchildren also have been involved.

“I feel all of our kids in the club are a little better because they were involved in 4-H,” she said. “It gives them something to work toward.”

Olsen also believes the Country Cousins club has been an important anchor in the Birch Grove community, instilling neighborhood cohesiveness.

“It’s working together. We do a lot of community service,” she said.

Being at the fair brings back fond memories for Olsen, but she’s not one to rest on her laurels. If she’s able, she’ll be back again next year, scattering her many entries among the open-class departments.

And if it’s a good year for flowers, Olsen just might get that Exhibitor of the Year award that’s still on her to-do list.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.