This is Behind the Clover, Real 4-H Talk with Real 4-H h pros. A look at 4-H from the perspectives of 4-H professionals from Illinois and beyond with your host, Henry Craft, Amy Henschen, and me, Ryan Littlejohn.
Henry Craft: 00:28Welcome everyone to another episode of Behind the Clover. I'm Henry, and I'm here with Amy and Ryan to continue exploring all things 4-H through conversations with our fellow staff from around the state. Today, we're continuing our series about transitions and are speaking with Kasey Kemme, youth development educator in unit twenty one to talk about moving from the classroom to 4-H . We'll introduce Kasey fully in a bit, but first, we're gonna do our regular check-in. So first things first, what's going on in your lives, folks?
Henry Craft: 00:58Amy, what's up?
Amy Henschen: 00:59I'm a super green data nerd, and it's data season. I could not be more excited. I spent the whole day Monday on do not disturb because I was just staring at spreadsheets and making cool maps and data visualizations. And I was, like, in my zen, and it was glorious. And I want more days like that.
Amy Henschen: 01:19So I'm working on just trying to make what we do and that impact visible in ways that it's easy to understand. So I was like, making maps, making charts, making statistics. And, like, it was just I know that I'm the only person in the world that thinks this is exciting, but I loved it. This is what I'm doing, and I'm just gonna be trying to think of more ways to just convey our awesome work that we're doing all around the state in just ways people can understand. So I expect some fun charts and graphs and maps and etcetera from me.
Amy Henschen: 01:50And you might see them in other places like the Cloverseed, our annual report from the 4-H Foundation, and other places. So that's what I've been up to. What about you, Ryan? What have you been up to?
Ryan Littlejohn: 02:03Well, if you listened to our last episode, you might have heard our controversy on Tootsie Rolls. And today, I've been eating Tootsie Rolls all day long. So that's pretty much what I've been doing. Besides getting ready to finish my last signature program for the year, which is exciting, I'm doing Ready4Work in a high school college and career exploration class. I'm just trying to wrap things up, get things ready so I can be gone.
Henry Craft: 02:31Going on with me, I'm in the process of starting up a a homeschool group that is focusing on cooking. So we're gonna do the whole gamut and take the youth through Cooking 101 and start them basic. So this is youth, 4-H ages, eight to eight to 18. If they wanted to be there, we've got quite a few teens, and we're gonna split them up and had to go through the whole process of getting a contract signed with a third party. So that's a whole skill.
Henry Craft: 03:06If you don't know how to do that in Extension, it's it's a thing. And we are gonna have a great time. I bought about 20 pounds of cheese because we're gonna make some fruit and cheese skewers and practice our cutting skills, with somewhat of a safe, ingredient, not too slick. But, yeah, we're gonna do that, and we're gonna talk about MyPlate, and we're gonna do a lot of fun stuff. I made a little board with MyPlate and felt and put some ping pong balls with Velcro together.
Henry Craft: 03:39So they're gonna toss, like like, on, Bozo the Clown, like he used to do the buckets. Well, we're gonna have a board, and they're gonna do a little circus game with it. So it's gonna be a whole lot of fun. So, yeah. So that's what's coming up for me.
Amy Henschen: 03:53So much Bozo nostalgia in my brain right now. Thank you for bringing that back.
Henry Craft: 03:59Indeed. He is everybody's favorite clown. So alright, Kasey. Now is the time. What is going on with you?
Kasey Kemme: 04:08Oh, man. I partner with our regional office of education for their alternative school program, and we do programs at their junior high and high school. And so that's one of my really big projects right now. And then I also do a special like, I'm a specials teacher at an elementary school in town. They needed someone to cover their third, like, strand of two grade levels.
Kasey Kemme: 04:33So every Monday, I get to go, and I'm their specials teacher. And so it's really fun. I get to know the kids over the year. We I go every Monday for the entire school year. So we kinda get to hang out all year.
Kasey Kemme: 04:46So getting all those things prepped and ready and getting things ready for December. I feel like usually December's kinda slow, but we're in November already. And so it's kinda crazy how time's flying by this year.
Henry Craft: 04:59Can you define what it what's a specials teacher is?
Kasey Kemme: 05:03Oh, yeah. I can. So a specials teacher is like the enrichment program. So an art teacher, a music teacher, band, computers, all those types of things. So, yeah, I get to hang out with second and third graders and do fun second and third grade activities.
Henry Craft: 05:18I bet they love you. Like, teaching background, not not to give too many spoilers for what's coming up. And then you get to come in, and I bet that ticks in a box for you.
Kasey Kemme: 05:27It does.
Henry Craft: 05:28Not in every day, but you get to be there just enough.
Kasey Kemme: 05:31Absolutely. Definitely.
Amy Henschen: 05:33Super fun. Well, we like to ask the hard questions on our podcast, and we've got a real existential question to ask today for all of our feedback. And that question is, is a hot dog a sandwich? A valid question. And I'm curious what your thoughts are.
Amy Henschen: 05:52Henry, do you do you have an opinion on this topic?
Henry Craft: 05:55I wondered when this question was gonna come up when we started talking on this podcast because it is the age old question. It's such a hard one. So many people debate this too, so I've got all of their thoughts going through my head. I'm gonna say yes. I'm gonna say yes.
Henry Craft: 06:09It is. It is a sandwich because it is something in between two pieces of bread. It's a sandwich.
Amy Henschen: 06:17K. That's fair. Kasey, do you wanna weigh in on this one?
Kasey Kemme: 06:20At first, I was gonna say no, but then I started thinking about the two pieces of bread. So I guess I'd have to go with yes and side with Henry on that.
Amy Henschen: 06:29I have heard some people be like, well, they're connected. And I'm like, yeah. But, like, barely. And, like, some sandwich bread's connected. So, Ryan, do you have an opinion on this?
Ryan Littlejohn: 06:39I'm against all of you on this one. Because a hot dog is not a sandwich. And if you would go to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council's website, you can find, is a hot dog a sandwich? There's a or an article about it.
Ryan Littlejohn: 06:55And here's some valid points that I wanna bring up. Does ESPN broadcast sandwich eating contest, or is there a national sandwich eating contest on July 4? No. It's a hot dog eating contest. I've said this before.
Ryan Littlejohn: 07:10A sandwich is two pieces of bread that are individual from each other has got meat, cheese, veggies, all in that. I know Subway has their own little weird way of doing it. Give me a Jimmy John's or Jersey Mike sandwich. You split that bread all the way down the middle. That's a sandwich.
Ryan Littlejohn: 07:26Hotdog - sandwiches, two different things. Sometimes you can put the same things on them. I'm just against you guys on this.
Amy Henschen: 07:33I'm sorry, Ryan, but you're standing alone on this one. And, like, I'm sorry, but that was not persuasive arguments from the hot dog council or whatever. Those are just, like, I mean, what we call this contest. Just you can have sandwiches that have specific names like an Italian beef. You don't have to say the word sandwich.
Amy Henschen: 07:52So I'm I'm of the opinion if it's if it's got bread that could be separated or could be together and it's got some yumminess in the middle, it's a sandwich. So I'm saying yeah on this. I'm with Henry and Kasey. So, you know, existential question solved. Three to one, we win.
Ryan Littlejohn: 08:12Now that you've heard our very lively discussion about hot dogs, we're gonna take a moment to learn more about Kasey because that's why we're here. Kasey Kemme is originally from a small town in Iroquois County, Loda, but currently lives outside of Effingham. She currently serves as the 4-H youth development educator for Clay, Effingham, Fayette, and Jasper Counties. Starting as Extra Help in 2014, she has seen a lot over the last ten years with extension. Welcome, Kasey.
Ryan Littlejohn: 08:40I know I can't wait to hear more about you. So tell us a little bit more about yourself and how you got started with 4-H .
Kasey Kemme: 08:47Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks for having me, guys. I'm Kasey Kemme, as they said. I grew up on a small grain and cattle farm in Loda, Illinois.
Kasey Kemme: 08:57Growing up, we had cows, and I just love the cows out in the cow lot. But we never showed them or anything. And so at one point, my family said we're kinda done with cows. And at that point in time, I jumped into sports full throttle. I played volleyball, basketball, track, and swam competitively.
Kasey Kemme: 09:18Was on all the different you know, the travel teams. We had sports every weekend. We were pretty busy growing up. And then a few years after we got rid of our cattle, my brother came to my parents and said, I'm gonna buy two show calves. I remember my mom and dad looking at them like, with what money?
Kasey Kemme: 09:36And so out of nowhere, they my brother brought home two Simmental steers, and he started showing cattle at that point in time. And a few years later, I decided to give it a whirl, so I showed for about three years. Once I graduated high school, I knew that I wanted to be a coach of some sort, so my lifelong dream was to be a volleyball or a track coach. And so I went to school to be a teacher. I went to Eastern and had a got an elementary education degree with a middle level endorsement in social science concentration and all the things.
Kasey Kemme: 10:11Really enjoyed my time at EIU. I began coaching volleyball at that point in time in Charleston. I was an assistant, seventh grade volleyball coach. And all the thing,s while back at home, my brother was still raising cattle, and we were still going to shows like crazy. I, found myself on the outside of the show ring watching in, and I began taking pictures.
Kasey Kemme: 10:32I actually took pictures for a lot of years of showmen throughout the ring. Lots of cow pictures. Lots and lots of cow pictures. But once I graduated, I graduated from Eastern in a time where there were a million teachers and not enough jobs for us. And so I took on a maternity leave in my home district, and I did that while coaching junior high track.
Kasey Kemme: 10:57I quickly realized that I did not want to teach in my home district. I didn't like that my brother was down the hall from me and my cousin was popping in and that everyone knew me. My friend's kids were in my class, and that was really hard for me. But like I said, didn't have a job. I interviewed and interviewed and interviewed, and it just got really hard.
Kasey Kemme: 11:20And about September of 2014 I got a phone call from Ginger Boas in the Champaign unit, and she said, hey. I'm willing to give you a chance at this. What do you think? And so I was actually hired as an extra help program coordinator to cover Ford County. Ford County is pretty small, less than a hundred 4-Hers.
Kasey Kemme: 11:41At the time, I think we had, like, 65 to 70. And she was like, I just need someone to kinda take on that role. And I told her, I was like, well, I'll give it a shot. But if a teaching job comes along, I'm probably gonna peace out of here. And she was like, totally get it.
Kasey Kemme: 11:56So I started with that. I was working in Unit 13, and then I would substitute on my days off just to keep my name out there. And I'm still interviewing for jobs, and it was just kinda hard to get my, like, to get myself out there. And I was very lucky for this because I was still going to schools and still getting to see kids. And that was kinda my first eye opening experience as to what Extension could do because I was not a 4-H member growing up.
Kasey Kemme: 12:24That's always my fun fact. Going to the schools and doing all these things really kinda set my standards pretty high for how a classroom should be ran and how bringing outside resources in helps within the classroom. So February of 2015 , I was asked to come back to the school in Urbana that I student taught at. They said, we can offer you a half time teaching gig. And I said, well, what does half time look like?
Kasey Kemme: 12:51Am I doing, like, two and a half days a week? Am I coming in the mornings? Am I coming in the afternoons? And they were like, you're gonna teach the afternoons. So I became a third grade teacher at half time.
Kasey Kemme: 13:02Luckily, Ginger was very willing to work with my schedule. So I would actually drive to Champaign every morning, work in the Champaign office for three hours, drive across town to Urbana, teach for three hours, and then go back to the Extension office and finish my day. And I did that from February through May. At the May, I ended up getting a full time teaching job in Urbana, teaching fourth grade. And I looked at Ginger and I said, well, I guess I'm done.
Kasey Kemme: 13:31And she was like, wait. What? You're not done. And I said, yeah. Like, I have to go teach.
Kasey Kemme: 13:36And she was like, no. No. No. Like, finish off the summer with us. And I said, okay.
Kasey Kemme: 13:41She goes, how about until or August 1st? And I said, that works for me. Like, we'll make it work. So I continued through the summer, got my fair done, helped with Iroquois and Champaign County fairs as well. And then August 1st rolled around and I said, see you.
Kasey Kemme: 13:56I'm going to the classroom. And I, honest to god, thought that was kind of my end of Extension in my involvement because teaching was crazy. The school year went along. I had a rough class my first year. But Ginger's like, you wanna quit and come back full time?
Kasey Kemme: 14:12And she always joked about it, and I was like, no. Like, I think I'm where I'm supposed to be. So my first full year teaching completes, I end, get my classroom packed up. I was driving my mother crazy. I didn't live at home, but I was driving my mother crazy because I called her, like, five times a day.
Kasey Kemme: 14:32And she's like, I have I don't have a list of things for you to do. Like, you have to figure it out. You're an adult now. And she said, I think you need a job this summer. And I said, I don't think so.
Kasey Kemme: 14:42And she's like, no. You do. Figure it out. So I called Ginger and I said, hey. You want some extra hands this summer?
Kasey Kemme: 14:50And she's like, actually, yeah, we'll take you. You can go do some programming for us. You can help with fairs. We'll take you part time this summer. I said, okay.
Kasey Kemme: 15:00End of that summer, I said, there's no way I'm not spending a summer, like, not doing this from here on out. So as the years went by, they had some turnover in their unit. EPCs came and went. EPCs came in with not very much livestock knowledge. And growing up on the farm, I had quite a bit and being at all these shows, she was like, well, what if you come in and just plan our livestock shows and leave? And I was like, well, that sounds like a win win for everybody.
Kasey Kemme: 15:27Throughout the years, would say, man, eight years probably, I did that pattern of things. And then, October of twenty one actually, let me rewind. During 2020, I moved to, Effingham to where my now husband lived, and I started teaching down here. And I still helped up there in the summer and kinda drove back and forth, and there had been some rumblings that the person in my current position was retiring. And I had gotten a lot of you have to apply, you have to apply, and I just couldn't get all the way in with that.
Kasey Kemme: 16:03So finally, I think the second to last day I could apply, I threw my application in, and here we are. So kind of a long road to get here. Lots of different things throughout the years, but lots of ups and downs.
Amy Henschen: 16:17I love it so much, Kasey. And I love that Ginger knew to just keep you, like, keep in contact with you and keep the door open so we could keep that connection going and build to having you here. Well, it sounds like from all of that that you're a person who likes to be busy. Like, you like to find things to do, or you evidently drive your family crazy.
Amy Henschen: 16:39I understand that. I understand that. So question for you. How do you like to spend your free time away from the job, or how do you decompress from the job so that you can, you know, zen out and not be all work all the time?
Kasey Kemme: 16:53Yeah. So my husband and my mother and father-in-law along with our two boys, Palmer and Baylor, we actually own and run Kemme Show Pigs right here in Effingham. We raise and sell direct spot and crossbred gilts and barrows that go actually throughout the country. We just wrapped up our selling season for Oklahoma and Texas, so we spend a lot of time outside and in the barns. But outside of that, a lot of time with my family, my parents, we travel up north to see them quite a bit.
Kasey Kemme: 17:29We are also big sports fans in our house. So huge Chicago Cubs fans, so you'll always catch me watching a Cubs games or listening to them while I do busy work. But we also are season ticket holders for Illini football. So we are on the go a lot, but really love sports and getting out there and watching live games any chance we get.
Amy Henschen: 17:52Okay. One thing I love about you, Kasey, is you bring your kiddos along for the ride. So you you have two kiddos. How old are they?
Kasey Kemme: 18:01So Palmer just turned two, and Baylor is five months old. And like Amy said, they are always on the go with us, and that's something that I knew very early on that I wanted to fit them into our busy, crazy lifestyles, not pawn them off on people. So Palmer actually has his own seat at the Illini football games, and he is going to his fourth game of the season, I think, this weekend. So, yeah, we've he they're along for the ride for in everything we do.
Amy Henschen: 18:30They are gonna be such big Illini fans because they have all the gear. They are, like, outfitted, and I love it so much.
Kasey Kemme: 18:36Absolutely. It's fun shopping for them. There's a lot cuter things for kids than there is adults.
Ryan Littlejohn: 18:43Well, Kasey, I heard you say that you weren't a 4-H member growing up, which I did not know, so I learned something new today. But we wanna know what's your favorite 4-H story or experience is that you've had over the years working here.
Kasey Kemme: 18:59Yeah. I was not a 4-H member. I'll backtrack to that a little bit. My aunt was actually a leader. When we got rid of our animals and stuff and chose the sports route, mom pretty much came back in and was like, you kinda have to choose.
Kasey Kemme: 19:14Like, we can't do everything. We can't afford to do everything, and we don't have the time to do everything. And so I kinda watched 4-H from the outside looking in growing up, and I saw the benefits. We showed cattle, but we just did junior and open shows. We never did 4-H shows.
Kasey Kemme: 19:32So everyone's always really confused about that. They're like, wait. Time out. Like, how did you guys do that without being 4-H members? But we kinda watched from the outside, got some of the experiences.
Kasey Kemme: 19:43I am a huge advocate for 4-H now because I feel like I had a different experience than what a 4-H member did. I saw the perks. I saw everything that comes from it. But I will say that one of my favorite things about 4-H is seeing the people that have started when they were four or five years old and grown up to graduate high school. I'll give an example of one of the 4-Hers in Champaign County.
Kasey Kemme: 20:10My first year working with them in 2014, she she was a first year member, but that was ten years ago. So this year, she graduated, and she got a scholarship to be on a livestock judging team and all these things. But throughout those years, I've gotten to see her successes from the outside looking in knowing that 4-H just had a small part in what she's done for herself. So I really think that having those experiences and seeing the kids do those types of things are what brings you back to, like, ground you essentially for what we're doing as 4-H staff.
Henry Craft: 20:48I think it's really cool that you have that experience of having seen someone start and finish even though I mean, you've been an educator for a few years, not ten years. But, like Right. With your involvement, just being able to see that I being so early on in your career with extension, I think is a really unique and valuable thing. I think it's really cool that you you get to have that. So because I think if especially if it's a success story, right, like, it's really motivating to be like, yeah, we can this is what this has done for for our local youth.
Henry Craft: 21:22So for sure. Also, I will say, don't feel alone. I was also not a 4-Her for very long, a little bit of time, but I wasn't an extended 4-H member. So
Kasey Kemme: 21:35It's actually pretty shocking whenever you talk to people that are EPCs or educators that weren't.
Henry Craft: 21:42Yeah.
Kasey Kemme: 21:42So I think that having a mix of those who were and those who weren't is great because you kinda get both perspectives of it.
Henry Craft: 21:51And sometimes you get a, really?
Kasey Kemme: 21:54Oh, yeah. All the time. Are are you serious? Yeah. I'm pretty sure.
Henry Craft: 21:59Yeah. Last I checked, yeah, it didn't happen. Interesting. I think that's cool. I'm glad to have that solidarity with you, Kasey.
Henry Craft: 22:06When we're recording this, I'm gonna transition to a new question for us here. It's back to a silly one. As we're listening or listeners, as you're tuning in, likely quite a few different holidays have come to pass, And we just gotta know. I'm gonna start with you, Kasey. Which festive holiday food would you choose to leave off the table and why?
Henry Craft: 22:32So what are you gonna skip on your plate and go?
Kasey Kemme: 22:35Deviled eggs all the way around.
Henry Craft: 22:38Oh, you should see Ryan and Amy's faces right now. I think their jaws dropped to the floor.
Ryan Littlejohn: 22:44This is unacceptable.
Kasey Kemme: 22:45I knew I would get that reaction. I cannot stand the smell of deviled eggs. And I can't tell you why. My whole life, I we'd walk into the house and my mom would be making them. I'd be like, ick
Kasey Kemme: 22:57here we go again. It must be a holiday. But yeah. Nope. I cannot stand the smell of them.
Kasey Kemme: 23:05You will not find me with them on my plate or making them in my house.
Ryan Littlejohn: 23:10I need, like, a whole plate to myself of the deviled eggs. Like, those are the best thing on the table to me. And, like, the thing I'm gonna skip, the turkey. I don't care for turkey at all. I'm a ham person.
Ryan Littlejohn: 23:24No turkey. So you can you can judge me for that because that's, like, one of the most common ones, but I can't do it.
Amy Henschen: 23:30I am also just so sad about the deviled eggs because I'm a vegetarian, but I do eat eggs. And they are like my protein at holidays, and I love them. And I'm like, plate for me. But I will acknowledge that sometimes egg smell also makes me feel a little, like, icky. But I'm like, they're so tasty when they're in your mouth that I I get over it.
Amy Henschen: 23:49Love them. I will eat almost I mean, aside from meat, because I'm a vegetarian, I will eat pretty much any holiday yum. But I want it to be home cooked. Like, I'd rather it be home cooked. Like, I'm not gonna waste calories on, like, boxed - not you can't, like, plus up a box thing to make it yums.
Amy Henschen: 24:09You know? I don't need no cranberry sauce from a can that's shaped like a can. I don't need to eat that. I'm not wasting no calories on that. So that's kinda my policy is, like, I'll try anything that is not meat and but I would prefer to use my calories for something that was homemade or plussed up that's not just, like, you know, packaged ickiness.
Amy Henschen: 24:29So that's my policy.
Kasey Kemme: 24:31I will defend myself for a second because my great granny used to sometimes forget to take some shells out. So sometimes your deviled eggs may be a little crunchy. So I think that probably had something to do with it from when I was younger as well. So not completely my fault.
Henry Craft: 24:51I love your statement though.
Henry Craft: 24:53Like, oh, must be another holiday. Gross eggs. Oh my gosh. I I have to say I get down with the deviled eggs, a little paprika on top.
Henry Craft: 25:04Big fan. Is it paprika? Paprika?
Amy Henschen: 25:07I don't I always like I'm I always do sometimes people say things different way that I'm like, have I been saying this wrong my whole life? I've always said paprika, but either one sounds fun. I'm down.
Henry Craft: 25:17But the one that I'm leaving off my plate, speaking of grannies and god rest her soul, my grandmother, she made a apple salad with mayonnaise as the or miracle whip, I believe, is what it was. Sorry. I'm having some visceral reactions to that. But it was always on the table. It was this apple salad, and she put mayonnaise as the sauce, and it was a thing.
Henry Craft: 25:46And somebody on this podcast listening is going to know about it, and they're gonna be like, Henry, that is my everything. Why are you doing this? And I cannot get down with that. I'm not interested in the apple mayonnaise salad. Look it up.
Henry Craft: 26:01It's a thing.
Amy Henschen: 26:02Well, let's get serious again and get back to it. Although I love hearing about foods that we have deep aversions to. Great. I'm all in. So, Kasey, as you alluded to in your your introduction, you spend a lot of time in the classroom as a teacher.
Amy Henschen: 26:18And we're we're curious a little if you could tell us a little bit about your making the decision to leave teaching and coming to 4-H . Like, what led you to to make that decision? And, like, what was appealing about 4-H as your next career step?
Kasey Kemme: 26:33Yeah. For sure. So, yeah, as I said, I taught in Urbana starting in 2015. I grew up in a very small town, very small district. And so Urbana was kind of a shock to my system, but it was the shock I needed.
Kasey Kemme: 26:51I absolutely love teaching in Urbana. I taught fourth grade for four years. And then in 2019, my principal came to me, and she needed me to do a split level class, which meant that I had I'm pretty sure I had twelve fourth graders and ten fifth graders at the time. I will say that I had one student that I was pretty close with. He had a lot of behavioral issues, but he and I just clicked as teacher student.
Kasey Kemme: 27:22And when it came time to put him in a fifth grade class, both of the fifth grade teachers said, don't want him. And I said, well, I'll take him. Put me as a fifth grade teacher. And so along those lines, I was actually one of our positive behavioral coaches within the school. So I dealt with a lot of students who had some behavioral issues and some struggles along the way.
Kasey Kemme: 27:44And nine times out of 10, if they had a record of having some behavioral issues, they landed themselves in my classroom. As the years went on, that got a little bit harder. And then when they put me in a split level class and I had fourth and fifth graders that had some behavioral issues, it kinda got to be a lot. I didn't mention this in my, introduction, but I went to school for my master's degree at Eastern as well, in curriculum and instruction, but I concentrated all of my master's work on social emotional learning. And so I was really passionate about that and helping kids kinda find their way.
Kasey Kemme: 28:182019 was pretty crazy, and then we finally got our bearings and the Christmas break hit. We come back to school, and people are just starting to get sick left and right. All of a sudden, we're hit with the pandemic, and we had to relearn teaching. We went to strictly online. Things got really hard.
Kasey Kemme: 28:38I mean, the poverty rate in the community I taught in was very, very high. They didn't have the materials they needed for me to be able to teach from afar. It was just hard, and the expectations on us for as a teacher was really hard because we were expected to have contact with those kids daily. And some of them didn't have phones. They didn't have computers.
Kasey Kemme: 28:58They didn't have a way for us to stay in contact with them. Right before the pandemic hit, I had actually finished my master's, and I was kinda throwing around the idea of what came next, but didn't really know where I was going with it. When I chose to get it in curriculum and instruction, I knew that it would be a good area if I ever wanted to become a 4-H educator. That's why I didn't go into the principal side of things or the school administration because it wouldn't have transferred as easily, and there's not many options with that outside of a school setting.
Kasey Kemme: 29:32I knew when I got
Kasey Kemme: 29:33my master's that teaching public school system probably wasn't it for me forever. I was willing to accept that, which a lot of people are not. So I feel like a lot of people are like, no. I went and got my degree in this. I'm gonna stick it out.
Kasey Kemme: 29:46And I had already come to the conclusion that it just wasn't what I was meant to do forever at that time of my life. It was it, but not anymore. COVID hit. In the meantime, I met my husband, and he said, why don't you start looking at jobs down here? Meaning, Effingham area.
Kasey Kemme: 30:07And I came across one. It was to be a sixth grade teacher in a smaller school district, and I said, okay. I'll throw my name in the pot and see what happens. I drove down here on a Thursday afternoon, and I was offered the job Friday afternoon. And so that was actually, like, three months after he and I met.
Kasey Kemme: 30:27So it was kind of pretty quick. I turned in my resignation in the middle of COVID and said, I'm not coming back. Here's the deal. And they were like, oh, well, we were kinda counting on you to do this, this, and this once we returned with COVID. And I said, well, I'm sorry.
Kasey Kemme: 30:42Like, my decision's already made. So I get down here and I start teaching sixth grade math and science, which neither of those were really my concentration, but they had the same math curriculum that I taught in Urbana. So the transition was pretty easy because I was already teaching the fifth grade version of it. The expectations that were put on teachers after COVID I don't even know how to say it because it was just really hard. We were expected to do things that weren't necessarily our job.
Kasey Kemme: 31:11I have a lot of trouble saying that phrase because I mean, we have all of their duties as assigned in our job description, so everything kinda somewhat falls into our extension role. But as a teacher, I was teaching kids, like, basic manners. I was in charge of their health for six hours of the day. I was taking temperatures. We were doing all these different checks.
Kasey Kemme: 31:36But then on top of it, we had a whole new level of social emotional learning that had to happen. And that was my, like, that was my jam. I loved that. It kinda took the joy out of it. I didn't like it anymore.
Kasey Kemme: 31:49And so I kinda toughed through a whole year in the smaller school district. Throughout that time, I also realized that I was not meant to be in the smaller school district. The larger one was kinda where it was at and kinda fit me a lot more. But where I'm at, we're in a very rural community, and there aren't school districts like that. I was still kinda helping Ginger throughout the summer.
Kasey Kemme: 32:12She had an EPC get sick right before her fair. I went up and ran her entire fair for her that summer. Bunch of different things kinda happened, and that's when the end of the summer, this position came open. I went after a lot of people had talked to me about it. I kinda went home to my husband, and I just said, hey.
Kasey Kemme: 32:30Here's the deal. Like, I think I'm gonna apply for this job because this teaching thing isn't for me right now. And he said, are you saying it's not for you forever or, like, right now? And I said, right now. Like, I'm not a fan of where I'm at.
Kasey Kemme: 32:48I'm not a fan of the grade level I'm in. The joy is kinda gone. I'm not helping people like I used to. It was just very different, and it was kind of a culture shock coming from where I was.
Amy Henschen: 33:00Join us next time on Behind the Clover as we continue our conversation with Kasey Kemme as we learn more about her career with Illinois 4-H . From part time extra help and full time public school teacher to a 4-H youth development educator, Kasey gives us her advice on a successful transition.