Join us each month on Behind the Clover, Real Talk with four h Pros. As we put out new episodes monthly where we invite experienced staff from four h around the state of Illinois to share a sneak peek into a day in the life of an EPC, an educator, state specialist, county director, etcetera.
Amy Henschen: 00:37Once we wade through the story of Illinois four h, our goal is to reach out and explore four h on a national scale, state by state. Who knows? Maybe even on an international stage as well.
Ryan Littlejohn: 00:47Our goal is to shed light on the four h experience and all of its diversity and hopes to bring some solidarity. And maybe, just maybe, we'll crack a joke or two. But let's get real. Sometimes four h is more fun than a barrel of monkeys. These are real four h stories for real four h folks.
Ryan Littlejohn: 01:04Let's stay sane together.
Amy Henschen: 01:07Welcome to another episode of Behind the Clover, real talk with four h pros. I'm Amy, and I'm here today with my cohost, Henry and Ryan, to get real with another four h professional through some fun conversation. Today, we're continuing to learn about all the different positions in Illinois four h by interviewing one of our state specialists, the one and only Kurt Sinclair. Y'all are in for real treats today as we let Kurt be Kurt. We'll give him a formal intro in a bit, but first, we'll dive into our roundtable chat.
Amy Henschen: 01:34So, Ryan, why don't you start us off? What's going on in your life right now?
Ryan Littlejohn: 01:37I am taking a course over volunteers. I'm taking the achieving the extension mission through volunteers course that the North Region puts on, and it's like I'm taking a college class all over again on top of all the other college classes I'm taking right now. So, really, I'm taking, like, sixteen credit hours this semester, adding this course on top of it. But it's been great. I've learned a lot.
Ryan Littlejohn: 02:02There are some other EPCs throughout the state that are on it with me. And we've kinda created our own little group and that and kinda bounced ideas off how to recruit volunteers, different things like that, how are we gonna retain our volunteers. So it's been great. That's that's pretty much what I've been doing because it's a lot of work.
Amy Henschen: 02:21That sounds amazing. So, like, how long is this course?
Ryan Littlejohn: 02:23Eight weeks, I think. It's just eight weeks. It was I think it was, a hundred dollars for us to do in Illinois. My county director covered it for me out of unit money because that's a big deal. But it's a great course if you wanna take it to learn more about how to work with your volunteers and to manage them because that's a big part of our role as an EPC is is our volunteer base and making sure that we have those around.
Ryan Littlejohn: 02:49So that's all that I've been doing. Henry, what have you been up to?
Henry Craft: 02:54Oh, hold on. Is that a box? Do you have a box of stuff that you're doing for that course? It looked like you pulled, like, a chest. Oh oh, it's a huge binder.
Henry Craft: 03:05It's a three inch. Chest of of knowledge right there. Like, this is volunteers.
Ryan Littlejohn: 03:11Yeah. Three inch binder.
Amy Henschen: 03:12Ryan's a gold. He's got everything organized. If anyone does real colors or true color I always forget which one. Real colors. Ryan wants everything organized and color coded.
Amy Henschen: 03:21So that's why you could see all the colors in that binder. I'm sure he has, like, each session is probably a different color. I love it. He's good.
Ryan Littlejohn: 03:28You're correct.
Amy Henschen: 03:28You need an organization man on your team. Ryan's the guy.
Ryan Littlejohn: 03:31And policy. I I read all the policy books. I love them. Can't get enough of it.
Henry Craft: 03:36Okay. I mean, me too. But boom. Alright. Cool.
Henry Craft: 03:41I like your binder. I like your binder, Ryan. Yeah. So what's going on in my life? Let's see.
Henry Craft: 03:49Last night, I got to help out with an officer training a little late, but late is better than never. And so we we got some did some escape box. Let's get to talk about what is leadership. And so that was fun. Yeah.
Henry Craft: 04:05But we have an awesome ad here today, so I'm gonna throw it to Kurt.
Curt Sinclair: 04:10Oh, yeah. Well, I agree with with the it's the season to be in online classes. It seems like I'm in three or four of those. And I sometimes end up in those accidentally, you know, instead of intentionally because I don't have a written plan for my life. Never have.
Curt Sinclair: 04:31But so, like, somebody told me that the tractor a curriculum books were not to be found anymore, and there was panic in the fields of Illinois because of the tractor a booklet. So I got ahold of, the idea of of finding some new materials. Next thing I know, I'm enrolled in the national tractor safety operators course from Penn State. And I'm online taking those classes, and now I finished yesterday, and I have accessed all their curriculum. On the same day, the word comes back from Purdue that they're going to reprint the tractor array books, and my efforts were just for my own self.
Curt Sinclair: 05:15And so sometimes the tractor wheels get spinning in the mud, but you you mean well. So
Henry Craft: 05:22Involuntary learning, Kurt. It's no big deal. Just involuntary
Curt Sinclair: 05:26That's just an example of, you know, sometimes you should probably have a written plan.
Amy Henschen: 05:32I mean, Kurt, the odds are that book's gonna disappear again sometime. You're you're still here when it does.
Curt Sinclair: 05:38I could write another one by Friday, but I don't know if I need to or not. But, yeah, there's there's never a shortage of something to do. That's for sure. Finalizing our list of counties that are gonna get trees this year to plant, and the list just keeps growing because the money keeps flowing in from places that I had no idea they wanted to play. And so we're trying to get more nurseries, lined up because we're trying to find enough trees to make everybody happy.
Curt Sinclair: 06:09So that's a good problem. One of my favorite things in the world are trees. So people come forward. The Nature Conservancy was the ones that that called this week and said, we've heard that you're planting trees with kids and communities, and how much money do you need to make that get bigger? We're like, what do you got?
Curt Sinclair: 06:27So, just things like that, which are fun. A lot of fun.
Ryan Littlejohn: 06:32Can you show me, like, where to go dig up this money tree? Because I could use some right now.
Curt Sinclair: 06:38I I definitely have three or four hidden around the state. And, yeah, I I can show you some. You you just gotta tell me what kind of fruit you like.
Ryan Littlejohn: 06:47You you just give me the coordinates. That that's all I need.
Curt Sinclair: 06:51You have to tell me what kind of fruit you want to come off the tree.
Ryan Littlejohn: 06:54Green and hundred dollar bills.
Curt Sinclair: 07:00You come up with something a little more, fruit like, and I'll help you. Money's worthless unless it's got something attached to it that means something. You know?
Henry Craft: 07:12That's that seriously sounds like a mob boss answer. You just gotta let me know what you want. I'll make it happen. I'll make it happen. I
Curt Sinclair: 07:22take that as a compliment.
Henry Craft: 07:24I I I mean it that way.
Curt Sinclair: 07:26Mhmm. Nobody's gonna get hurt here. Okay?
Henry Craft: 07:30Amy, what do you got going on?
Amy Henschen: 07:32Well, I feel like I'm channeling my inner Kurt because I'm working with my wonderful professional development or PD committee to plan what we're calling campapalooza. And I'm trying to make it financially work. That's my goal is to figure out what's the price point we could charge staff to come to camp, to experience camp, to experience some of our maybe neglected projects or underutilized projects on in an outdoor ed, environmental ed, shooting sports, get the camp experience, see what four h Memorial Camp's all about, and just have fun and relax and have two days away from their office. So we're planning on April, and I'm trying to get a price point so we can send a preemptive email to county directors to be like, you need to let your staff come to the before we send out the registration info. So I'm really excited about it.
Amy Henschen: 08:22Gonna talk to staff tomorrow on a call to to start plant the seed of, like, you best be saving these dates because we're gonna have fun out in camp. That's what I'm working on this week, and I'm really, really jazzed about it.
Henry Craft: 08:32Well, if you need money, Kurt's got a tree.
Amy Henschen: 08:35Well, I've got the 4 H state office tree and my budget, but I just need to check how much I've spent so far. So I would email in to the secretary to be like, I haven't been giving the best track. Can you check my accounts, please? So that's my, waiting for that one. But they've got some other things on their plate, I'm kinda patient on that.
Amy Henschen: 08:52And then we'll go from there. Well, enough about what's going on in our lives. We gotta get down to the real the the tough questions. So our our our question of the day today, our round table, is the perennial time travel question. K?
Amy Henschen: 09:07So you've got one round trip in that time machine. Are you going back in time? You're going forward in time? And if you wanna provide any more details about exactly where you're going, let me know. But I wanna know, are you a I'm gonna see the future, or I wanna go to the past kind of person?
Amy Henschen: 09:23So let's let's mix it up. Let's start with Henry on this one.
Henry Craft: 09:25You would start with me as I'm, like, reeling, trying to think of what I would do. This is a tough one. I I think I would probably I probably wanna go future because I think maybe we don't have all the all the info in the past. We've got you know, we know kinda what happened, and there are areas that I would totally go back to. But, you know, what's ahead?
Henry Craft: 09:50I try to think that way in my life is, you know, what's what's coming, what's in the future. But I think it would be cool to see kind of where we get to. Not to take that super seriously. But
Amy Henschen: 10:01I'm not that optimistic, Henry. That's crazy.
Henry Craft: 10:04Fair enough. Fair enough. I don't I mean, I was I was saying in my head, which I thought was a super downer which was if we're still here. I mean, that's that's you know, that's where I might have really
Amy Henschen: 10:17That's what I'm saying. You go to the future, humanity's doomed. It's last of us. It's the walking dead. It's But then it's just
Henry Craft: 10:24to come back. I guess
Amy Henschen: 10:25that's Okay. I'm going I'm going past, Joe. I'm going past. And I'm just gonna do something fun. I'm not doing anything serious.
Amy Henschen: 10:33Why would I be serious? Like, I'm not trying to change anything. I'm going to just be part of something happening in the moment. So I'm either going to, like, 1977 to wait in line to watch Star Wars at the theater with all these people who'd never seen anything like this. I'm gonna go sit in someone's living room for the moon landing.
Amy Henschen: 10:53I'm gonna do something like that. That's just like, I just wanna experience something that, like, made people woah. That's kinda, I think, my one thought. My other line of thought is, like, see something nature y before it got ruined. That's my other like like, I just wanna go to Yosemite before they damned a Hetch Hetchy Valley and, like, tromp around with John Muir and see that beauty before it, you know, got humans.
Amy Henschen: 11:22So those are kinda my two, but I'm going back just like to make myself feel like awe and wow. That's what I'm doing.
Henry Craft: 11:30So would you be that friend though that that spoils it for the if you go back and you're like, I'm gonna watch Star Wars with you. Guess what? It's his dad. How would you do that? Because I could see you being like
Amy Henschen: 11:43No way. Hey. I wanna do I would just secretly be like, dang, I know what's gonna happen. You guys have no idea. That's totally a sister.
Henry Craft: 11:51Put it in. Okay.
Amy Henschen: 11:52I would just think about it internally.
Henry Craft: 11:54I might I might just do it, and then we could we you go back and pass and redo it. Right? You can you can make it up. Oh, is that how time work? Is that how time travel works in theory?
Henry Craft: 12:04You get to go back and, like, redo it? No. But you change the course of history. That's what that's what Hollywood has told us happens.
Ryan Littlejohn: 12:12Yeah. You would you would mess up with the timeline, and I think your life would look different.
Henry Craft: 12:17You'd be the hated you'd be the most hated person in history. You ruined Star Wars for a whole movie theater, people.
Amy Henschen: 12:25Kurt, you got something? What are you gonna do?
Curt Sinclair: 12:29No doubt that if I could go forward or backward in time and have that choice, I would go backward, and I would be a part of the Lewis and Clark journey west. And I would like you said, I I would hope I didn't know what I know now with this modern stuff because I just want I just want to live that. I read a lot about that time period and those adventures and everything from though that that adventure to maybe just hanging out with Kit Carson for a year would be, like, a just an absolute fantasy for sure for me. And so then I'd come right back here and go, oh, man. That was great.
Curt Sinclair: 13:12That that's what I would do. I'd go back and and I think I'd read I wanna be on the the Lewis and Clark journey just like it was because I know it wasn't fun pulling a wooden boat up a up a river with a rope. Doesn't sound like a party, but you know what? Those guys, in my mind, were the toughest dudes ever. And I think that's just a a real part of our history I'd love to have smelled and tasted.
Ryan Littlejohn: 13:34I I agree with Kurt there. And, Henry, you're gonna be the oddball out again. But I'm gonna go back to the past, and I'm either gonna go back to two time periods. I wanna go back to the Wild West of Kansas and Oklahoma and Texas, because I've always been fascinated with the cattle drives and the cowboy lifestyle and what that was really like. So that'd be my first one.
Ryan Littlejohn: 13:55Or I would go back to, like, the roaring twenties of 1920 and, like, the big band era and dancing and all of that. I think it'd be so cool to experience that, especially with being a big music person. That's kinda like, if I can create the great Gatsby and live that, like, I wanna do that.
Henry Craft: 14:13Listen. The only thought I had when you guys were sharing that was I really hope they come back and don't die of dysentery. That's that's what I was thinking.
Amy Henschen: 14:24Oregon Trail caught us anything. Right? Yeah. Like, you have died of dysentery.
Ryan Littlejohn: 14:30What's Oregon Trail?
Henry Craft: 14:31Exactly. Quiet you.
Ryan Littlejohn: 14:36I'm sorry. But that game that game wasn't around on computers when I was growing up. Okay? I played Minesweeper and Pinball and Solitaire on Windows. We didn't have this Oregon Trail.
Henry Craft: 14:48Listen. I lived through actually, everybody but you lived through at least three iterations of Oregon Trail. Okay? So get with the times, honey.
Amy Henschen: 14:59Alright. Awesome. I love that again, we're ganging up on Henry and doing the exact opposite of him once again. That seems to be our theme on our round table Z train because we're all on the other side of the question.
Henry Craft: 15:12Told you. An extreme swimmer.
Amy Henschen: 15:14He's just chilling, and he's like, alright. I'm just gonna go with it.
Henry Craft: 15:18I thought you were the first.
Amy Henschen: 15:20I did. Hey. One way we all like, I would say all our hosts discovered, this week that we're all February birthdays, which we're really excited. I was like, one thing we all have in common. We all work for four h, and we all have February birthdays.
Amy Henschen: 15:33The saddest month to have a birthday, and we all share it. So we're all we're in this together, gents. I'm excited to be kicking off some February fun. Yeah. Kurt, when's your birthday?
Curt Sinclair: 15:46I am an August birthday.
Amy Henschen: 15:49Oh, summer. Yeah. Nice. So you can go on a great outdoor adventure and be warm on your birthday. We are, like, put on our snow gear and maybe be cold in my shanty on the ice or out hiking, so I'm shoeing.
Amy Henschen: 16:07It's just not as fun. I'm just I know you can layer up for any winter adventure, but I'd rather not be cold. That'd be great. Alright. Let's go ahead and introduce you to our guest today.
Amy Henschen: 16:18So Kurt Sinclair is truly one of kind. He currently serves as Illinois four h natural resources and shooting sports specialist, or as Kurt likes to call it, he just navigates the edge of work and play. So he likes to keep his bosses guessing by having so much fun at his job that you're not really sure if he works at all. And and all of us kind of get that vibe from him immediately, and I love that. So Kirk grew up in rural Illinois.
Amy Henschen: 16:44His parents come from Fayette and Jasper Counties. They met each other at Eastern Illinois University, where his mom was the homecoming queen, and his dad was a recently returned Korean War vet, impressing the ladies with his new Buick. And Kurt started with our Illinois four h program working at our beloved 4 H Memorial Camp back in spring of nineteen ninety three. But as Kurt told us, like, camp, what you're picturing today is not what Kurt entered in 1993. He said it was much less recognizable.
Amy Henschen: 17:14The the weeds were as tall as the buildings. Buildings were all wonky and, leaning and had shingles falling off. So Kurt took on the challenge of getting camp in shape and in the black. So he said he carried his toilet plunger, his pliers around all summer. He cooked all the meals at the camp kitchen, and he's a here's a he's a miracle worker.
Amy Henschen: 17:35The camp went from $12 in his bank account at the beginning of the season to 4,000. And his bosses were so impressed. They decided to, make that camp manager position permanent, a state educator position, and funded it from the state level, which kind of gave camp a more solid footing to grow and thrive and become what we know today. So he's been here ever since playing hard and maybe working hard too. It's hard to tell with him, but we're really excited to have him with us today.
Amy Henschen: 18:04So enough from me. Kurt is the best storyteller I know. So you're gonna wanna hear from him instead of me. So I'm gonna ask him, Kurt, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Curt Sinclair: 18:17Wow. I love that part about, you when you guys ask me, you know, where I was from, I've always liked to answer that question was, like, I was from my mom and dad, and that's why, you know, where location wise, that was secondary. So that's why I told you a little bit about my mom and my dad. They they definitely both very come from rural families on the farm in in South Central Illinois, and and times were tough there. And they found a way to persevere and make professionals out of themselves.
Curt Sinclair: 18:51They were both educators at at the end of their careers. And so that that's who I am is is, probably more because of my mom. She was a biology teacher and, in in high school ended up being a science coordinator and curriculum writer with the U of I before she retired. And that August birthday that I mentioned was a perfect time for a very busy, professional lady raising a bunch of her own kids to get her classroom organized. Right?
Curt Sinclair: 19:26So my birthday being the August 21, her birthday present to me every year was that I got to help her. And believe me, this was an honor that mom had time for you. We I had the honor of helping her set up the biggest aquarium in a high school biology room you've ever seen. The whole week of buildup for me was gathering all the equipment and the tools and getting everything ready to go to have my birthday be the day we set up the aquarium. And this was a day where we were gonna set up an entire ecosystem that had to be exactly representative of the streams, lakes, freshwater habitat as we had in Central Illinois.
Curt Sinclair: 20:18It was quite a job. We didn't just go out and net fish and throw them in a a glass container of water. We learned every plant along the way. We learned every species of minnow. We learned and we set it up.
Curt Sinclair: 20:32We had we work extra hard to find certain kinds of mussels, you know, that that would go into this aquarium. So this was a big project, and it was my birthday present. And it was the most fun and most bonding thing I could have been doing with my mom. And, obviously, it had an effect on me. Right?
Curt Sinclair: 20:54It ended up kinda shaping what I wanted to be. And so that's where I'm from is from them. And then that that story about my dad's Buick, when he got out of the war in Korea, he did an uncharacteristic thing now that I know him. He spent his money on that new car and then wanted to go to college, and none of the nine kids in his family had gone to college. So he drove it up to Charleston, and honest to goodness, the Van Dykes are from Danville, Illinois.
Curt Sinclair: 21:26Dick Van Dyke, Jerry Van Dyke, do you know those names? Jerry Van Dyke was he was hot on my mom's tail because she was the homecoming queen. And my dad witnessed Jerry making the moves on my mom, Marilyn, in the lunchroom. You know? And he's like, I don't think so.
Curt Sinclair: 21:42That chick's she's she's the one I want. So he moves in, and he gets my mom to notice his car outside the window. And it's game over. See you later, Jerry Van Dyke. Go make TV shows.
Curt Sinclair: 21:55He got the girl. About myself, I only knew one thing about a career, if you wanna talk about professional lives, and that's that I wanted to work with a connection to the outdoors. I can't and still can't envision being inside all the time. And I went to, Southern Illinois University in Carbondale out of high school. High school high school is a good experience for me.
Curt Sinclair: 22:21I mean, we won a state football championship, and a lot of good things happened there. But it it was an area I knew I wanted to leave, and this was Central Illinois. So I went to Carbondale and got, enrolled in the forestry school, because I knew I wanted to work outside. And at the time, I had my, I I'd say, first real job. You know, when you're growing up in a rural community, you're always working on everything from walking beans to baling hay to mowing yards and, you know, you worked as soon as you were big enough to work.
Curt Sinclair: 22:53But the the the job, like, career job, first one I had was at the Champaign County Forest Preserve District. Working outside in the park environment was a good vibe for me. So at the advice of a supervisor, he said, well, you know, get a get a biology or a forestry or degree of some kind. And if this if you like this kind of work, that that that would be a start for you. A lot of naysayers for me.
Curt Sinclair: 23:20People that knew that I was good at math, people that knew that I was good at science, people knew that I was they they didn't like the idea of me wanting to work in parks and recreation. My dad was even one of them. He's like, that's probably a you know, I don't think you'll make a living doing that. Had a lot of people tell me that, but I never wavered. I was like, no.
Curt Sinclair: 23:40I'm gonna find a way to work in the outdoors somehow. That's just always been my rock. And I've given that advice to many young people that I've worked with over the years. If they ask me for a job reference or what, I'm like, what do you wanna do? You know?
Curt Sinclair: 23:52Or a college reference or whatever it is. And I said, be true to that gut feeling you have. Just, you know, don't let somebody tell you to go down a path that you don't have some passion about because you will make it work. And so that's that's always my advice to a young person is to just keep following your your heart and never turn down an interview. That's another one that I always tell people because you'll learn something either about what you do or don't wanna do.
Curt Sinclair: 24:20You'll learn something about yourself. You'll learn something about an organization. You'll make a connection. There's nothing bad that can happen out of an interview other than you don't get the job offer, but you've learned something and you probably set yourself up for a different job offer. That's a little bit about myself.
Curt Sinclair: 24:37I know I'm probably off topic from where you want me to go. But
Ryan Littlejohn: 24:41I am just so impressed by, you know, everything that you do at the state level and how you have so much fun with it. But I'm sure it can be a lot sometimes. So my question is, what do you do to to decompress? I mean, you seem to have a lot of play in your job sometimes, but we all know that we have to turn it off sometimes. So what what's, your thing your go to thing to relax?
Curt Sinclair: 25:06Yeah. Well well, I appreciate that question because we all need that. I like sports like you do, Ryan. I mean, I I do really enjoy, several sports. I'm not gonna have a conversation with my 94 year old father unless I know what happened with the Saint Louis Cardinals yesterday, and that's year round, by the way.
Curt Sinclair: 25:25So I have to work a little bit to keep up on Saint Louis Cardinals baseball. You know, those were the days when dad would be on a Sunday afternoon, dad would be on the couch laying there with his eyes closed, radio would be on, or the TV would be on a cardinal game. And if you walked through there and made a noise, like you were gonna be so brave as to turn the TV channel or whatever off a cardinal baseball without opening his eyes, he'd be like, you touch that, and you're never gonna live to see another day. You know? And you'd be like, woah.
Curt Sinclair: 25:59Crap. Better become a Cardinal fan. So, I do love sports and professional and college. I am an outdoorsman, so I think I'm probably in my happy place when I'm in a canoe with a spinning rod and a bucket full of crappie or bluegill and and, headed home to clean those. I love to hunt.
Curt Sinclair: 26:19Hunting for me is, an a spiritual type of a thing to honor and know everything about the critter and how it survives and whether you're doing things the right way, ethical way. The all those things have very deep meaning for me, the outdoorsman activities that I do. And then I like sharing those with with my family. My son and I are very close to doing those kinds of things. The thing that helps me decompress in modern day, like, now, is a little grandson.
Curt Sinclair: 26:49He's hilarious. That's a new experience for me being a grandpa, and I find that to be very joyful. And it's it's true. It's really fun to have them for a while and then give them back to their parents. So those are some of the things I do, Ryan.
Curt Sinclair: 27:04Outdoor activities, sports, and family.
Ryan Littlejohn: 27:07And I'm guessing that the orneriness comes from his grandpa maybe?
Curt Sinclair: 27:12Oh, I don't know. My daughter certainly inherited some of that, so she she feeds that to him every day. Very strong young lady, and smart and hardworking and and loves to sing. So our thing, when I was raising my kids, our bath time when they were little like that was literally two hours long because I'd sit there we we I raised my family at the four h camp. So they had a very unique childhood.
Curt Sinclair: 27:41That camp house was nothing special, and it had this old I remember those from the fifties, those green bathtubs and, like, green fixtures that were in houses. So I'd sit on the green toilet, and we called it the green bathroom. I'd sit in the green bathroom on the green porcelain toilet with my children in the green lime green porcelain tub, fill you know, with hot, soapy water, get the kids in there, and then I'd go get my guitar. And I'd sit there on the green toilet, and we'd sing for, like, two hours. And it was joyful.
Curt Sinclair: 28:16And the water, you know, the water get colder and colder and colder. And I'd be like between songs, I'd be like, hey, kids. Are you done? And their their lips were blue. You know?
Curt Sinclair: 28:28They were so cold. And they're like, no. Let's keep singing. And so that that's a lot about what they remember. And so my daughter's a singer, and, my son also plays guitar and sings now with my daughter.
Curt Sinclair: 28:42And they won a contest year year or so ago in Missouri at one of the fairs down there and got a recording contract at a studio down in Saint Louis. So they've even cut some some music now together. And I think it's all because we sat in that dang bathtub for so long singing songs. So I got some kids that give me joy.
Henry Craft: 29:05Okay. So I'm not above a shameless plug. Like, how can people go find this music? Who is it? What are they called?
Curt Sinclair: 29:13Well, I will have to I don't know how all I know is how to find it on Facebook and stuff, so I don't know that they've got it anywhere. That's a good question, Henry. I don't know. I'll have to get back to you on that one.
Henry Craft: 29:27Not not to say that our not to say that our following is such that it would boost their careers and starve, but it would be cool.
Curt Sinclair: 29:36Oh, it it it's a lot of fun. They they have fun with it. I sang I sang a lot in college and played guitar a lot in college. And, yeah, a lot of it was in the bars down in Carbondale. But, hey, I stayed out of trouble.
Henry Craft: 29:51Gotta get you practice somewhere. It was all in the the the theme of practice. Right? That's that's why you were gigging. Yeah.
Henry Craft: 29:58That's awesome.
Curt Sinclair: 29:59Hair down on hair down on my shoulders, believe it or not. Yeah.
Henry Craft: 30:01Oh, Kurt the center rocker.
Curt Sinclair: 30:04Yeah. Bet. Oh, yeah. Do
Henry Craft: 30:07you think
Ryan Littlejohn: 30:07you could send us a picture so if we ever get something to, like, a social media channel or something, we can, like, post it with the episode? Like, this was Kurt.
Curt Sinclair: 30:18I probably could. I know my wife could dig up those pictures and stuff. Because we moved last year. I can't find anything now, but she knows where everything's at. Yeah.
Curt Sinclair: 30:27That first car I ever bought, Henry, was a '73 Cutlass Supreme with a three fifty rocket, four barrel carburetor, mag wheels, all that stuff, and it came. The car came with a Marshall Tucker eight track tape in the tape deck. And when I got in that car and saw that Marshall Tucker tape and then heard that motor, I was just like, I'll take it.
Henry Craft: 30:52I'm converted. I'll start throwing my air out now.
Curt Sinclair: 30:55Oh my gosh. Those were the days, man.
Henry Craft: 30:58Well, Kurt, like so you talked a lot about your hobbies already, and then that's what we got queued up. But I wanna kinda take it a different direction, just a little bit. Just just to hear you talk about the it's it's almost like you have a reverence for the outdoors, the things that you that you care about and talk about with such reference. And I think that's what's most captivating about you even in this moment for me. Side note, if you guys wanna have a really great time, put put Kurt's intro into an AI program and have her write something for you.
Henry Craft: 31:33With Kurt, we did that yesterday, and I tell you, was magical. Because and I and I I attribute that to I think the way you tell stories and and AI just to that together, man, that was a magical experience. But but, yeah, I just I'm intrigued by, again, the reverence that you have, like, for the outdoors. And so remind me again, what is what is your title specifically? Because I'm pretty sure I've messed that up, like, 15 times.
Curt Sinclair: 32:05I I do the same thing every week, Henry. I change it because I don't think anyone knows, and I prefer it that way. It's four h extension specialist. That part, I'm pretty sure, is rock solid. Then sometimes there's the words youth development that we throw in there with it, and then sometimes four h shooting sports slash environmental education.
Curt Sinclair: 32:33And then then I'll see my name listed somewhere else that says shooting sports outdoor education or adventures or what? I don't know. I had to fill out a form yesterday and put it on there, and I didn't even know what to put down.
Henry Craft: 32:52And how long have you been doing that? Like, I mean, just that outdoor piece?
Curt Sinclair: 32:56Well, I '93 is when I started with extension. Right. And I was camp manager, I believe, when I was hired.
Henry Craft: 33:06Right.
Curt Sinclair: 33:07But then they turned it into an extension educator with that change in funding, which, like Amy said earlier, really helped the camp. And the so as an educator in natural resources team because I remember when I got hired, the regional director, who is my boss, she said, we've got these different teams. Which one would you wanna be on? And I look at them, and there's a hort team, and there's the the youth development team. There's a natural resource team and all that.
Curt Sinclair: 33:34And I was like, well, I don't know anything about kids. So how about the natural resources one? I got two natural resource degrees. So I was a natural resources educator because I just put my finger on that line after I was hired. And so I was a natural resources educator with some of the greatest employees that, coulda helped me get started.
Curt Sinclair: 33:53I got so lucky meeting some people there. And so then and during one of the gyrations of extension and how they look at themselves, they like to reinvent themselves once in a while, you know, just for fun. They decided I wasn't a natural resources educator at camp after all. Oh, and, like, after sixteen years of doing it. And so then they said, nope.
Curt Sinclair: 34:18We've looked at your job. You're a camp director. I'm like, oh, yeah. Does that come with any more money? They're like, yeah.
Curt Sinclair: 34:26A little bit. Okay. Well, am I doing anything different then? No? Okay.
Curt Sinclair: 34:30They're just like, well, you were supervising employees, and you were, you know, doing this and doing and I'm like, yeah. But I've been doing that for a long time. Well, yeah, we're just now looking at it. So those things happen if you stick around long enough. You you watch extension look at itself in the mirror once in a while and go, man, we're not going down the right path here either.
Curt Sinclair: 34:50Let's let's relook at ourselves. It happens a lot. So, I was a camp director, and then one of my stories I have to tell is about this whole shooting sports thing. As a camp director, hold on to your socks. I was letting kids shoot bows and arrows at the four h camp.
Amy Henschen: 35:09And Gasp. Gasp.
Curt Sinclair: 35:11Oh, it was totally out of line, I was told, by a a boss that came along. Because I the bosses come along. Can't they they just come and go like camp counselors for me, you know, whichever boss is gonna be around for three years or whatever. Well, this particular one decided that that is not appropriate to have children shooting arrows. It's dangerous.
Curt Sinclair: 35:36It's not it's just not the thing to be doing, and I was told to stop. And I'm like, it's camp. The bows were here when I got here. And it's just I'm a hunter safety instructor for the DNR. I mean, like, I'm not doing anything dangerous here.
Curt Sinclair: 35:51It is not what we do. It is not what we do in Illinois 4 H. I'm like, well, that's too bad to hear because I don't wanna quit. And they're like, well, I'm gonna make you quit. Well, this is not a fun thing that we're going down here.
Curt Sinclair: 36:06I will because you're my supervisor, but this is, like, in May before camp starting that this conversation's happening. And it's pretty evident I'm not happy about it. But I did quit shooting balls and arrows that summer, and I turned into all kinds of other things that I had never been doing with children, like, boomerangs and addle addles and, you know, just all kinds of other projectiles were happening now because I was told not to shoot bows and arrows. That particular instruction didn't come with all these other don't do these things. So things began to get a little crazier than they were.
Curt Sinclair: 36:48And word got out that kids were having too much fun at the four h camp, and I got called into Urbana, Illinois to this silo looking like building. It's round. It looks like a grain silo, and it used to be where the state four h office was. And I don't remember the name of it. Ugly building.
Curt Sinclair: 37:11Smelled like mold. Anyway, go in there, and the director of extension, not the not the Illinois four h, you know, program leader, The director of extension is sitting in an empty room with this big monstrous conference room table. He's got his back to the door. I walk in, and then from behind the door, the four h program leader walks because she's been hiding when I walked in. She escorted me over against the wall where the windows are, and she sat on the other side of the table where he was at.
Curt Sinclair: 37:53And they said, listen. You have got to stop these shooting sports type activities at the four h camp, or else we're gonna have to have a serious discussion. I said, this isn't serious. This is serious. I'm not stopping because other states do it.
Curt Sinclair: 38:13I don't understand why this is such a negative, nonproductive idea for you. So I said, okay. I will quit, but I'm not gonna quit researching what you're missing out on here. Now mind you, four h numbers were going down, not up. So I don't know where they were getting so cocky.
Curt Sinclair: 38:31So I kept researching what was going on around us here. Found out, you know, that I could go get archery certification in Indiana at their next training on my own time. Heck, I'll, you know, I'll pay for it. I'll go everything. And then I'll go start a four h shooting sports club in Indiana in archery and do whatever I need to do to show Illinois that this is not a bad idea.
Curt Sinclair: 39:00So I went to Indiana. I got certified in four h archery shooting sports to come back to Illinois and report, you know, what I'm learning. During that time, again, administration changes. It's like that eight track tape. It goes right when the track goes and turns and goes back the other direction.
Curt Sinclair: 39:21That's what happened at this time. The eight the eight track tape got to the end, got a new boss, they called an interim. They loved that word at the time. Got an interim boss to at the state four h level, and his name was Richard Clark. Richard Clark saw things a lot differently than who was in his previous position.
Curt Sinclair: 39:46And he called me, and he said, would you like to come to our next extension administrative meeting and pitch the idea of starting a shooting sports program in Illinois? I'm like, yes, sir. I'd be glad to do that. I called some of my buddies because I had some member natural resource team buddies, and I had a camp board of directors that had always been behind me. Although they're they're not policymakers.
Curt Sinclair: 40:15They're advisory. President of the camp board at the time was a guy named Pete Fondle. And Pete was a Woodford County ag extension employee, Extension still wishes they had him on board. He's one of the sharpest dudes in Illinois in agriculture. He's a professor at Illinois Central College now.
Curt Sinclair: 40:35But, anyway, I called Pete because he was doing, hunter safety camps with me at the time. And I said, hey, Pete. Extension's ready to talk shooting sports. And he said, can I come too? And I'm like, yep.
Curt Sinclair: 40:47I'm asking you to. Dan Dawson is another guy that had, been on board with this idea all the time, and he was an extension educator in in Springfield. He goes, can I come too? And I was like, so anyway, we walked into the extension administration meeting there in the ACES library, pitched to them what Illinois four h could look like with a new program called shooting sports, and that how 47 other states were already doing it, and Illinois was one of three that wasn't. And we didn't even get to the door of the ACES library before when we were done with our presentation, before Richard called us back and said everybody said, this is a no brainer.
Curt Sinclair: 41:37Now keep in mind that the lady that was really upset with me for shooting arrows in the first place was in that room. And it was a little awkward to walk out of there with a with a win because I respected her as a person. I just didn't understand how we can be in a situation sometimes in our own organization where we say we're open minded and we're not. You will find that at times. So if anybody young guy gals out there, you run into something in your career with extension, stay true to yourself.
Curt Sinclair: 42:18Don't do anything stupid, but but go ahead and fight the machine. It's okay.
Amy Henschen: 42:25Alright. Kurt has given us so many great stories today, and we wanna keep talking to him. So we're gonna continue this conversation in our next episode of Behind the Clover. Thanks for joining us today.