Holmes County 4-H Shooting Sports Club names 2026 leaders at meeting

The Holmes County 4-H Shooting Sports Club put its 2026 leadership in place at an organizational meeting March 14 at the Eastern Holmes Sportsman Club, where Vice President Braxton Tish opened the gathering, JC Baker led the United States Flag Pledge and Lelynd Edens/Hamilton led the 4-H Flag Pledge. The structure of the meeting showed more than routine housekeeping. It marked the start of a year in which local families will be watching how the club organizes safety instruction, practice time and competition-ready preparation.

For Holmes County parents, the most important details are practical. Ohio 4-H says a shooting sports club must include five or more young people and two or more trained adults, and clubs are expected to meet at least six times for each shooting discipline. The program also recommends that youngsters be 9 years old before they start shooting sports. Ohio 4-H keeps permission and liability forms, incident and injury reporting materials, and club disbanding, dividing and departing guidelines, underscoring that the work around a shooting sports club is governed by a formal safety and compliance system, not just by sign-ups and trigger time.

That matters in a county where 4-H is part of the youth pipeline. Ohio State University Extension’s Holmes County office, which administers 4-H Youth Development, is at 111 E Jackson St. in Millersburg, and families looking for club information can reach the office at 330-674-3015. The county setup ties the shooting sports club to a larger Extension network that depends on trained adults, organized meetings and clear procedures to keep youth programs running consistently from one season to the next.

The club’s role in confidence-building is not just local intuition. In an October 2024 survey, National 4-H Council reported that 77% of youth said out-of-school programs help build confidence, compared with 63% who said the same about in-school programs. In Holmes County, that helps explain why even a short organizational meeting carries weight: it sets the tone for a year of instruction, supervision and leadership development.

The Eastern Holmes Sportsman Club has also served as a familiar site for the group before, including a prior Holmes County 4-H Shooting Sports Club report in 2024. With the 2026 officers and leadership structure now in place, the club is positioned to move into the season ahead under the same local venue that has become part of its annual rhythm.