Longtime Kodiak 4-H leader Marie Rice has been named to the National 4-H Hall of Fame.
Because of the pandemic, National 4-H has delayed the October 2020 ceremony to induct Rice and 15 others into the Hall of Fame. The ceremony will now take place Oct. 14, 2021 at the National 4-H Conference Center in Maryland.
Since the ceremony will not happen as planned, national 4-H hosted an informal Zoom gathering Friday for the 4-H laureates and their nominators and showed a video of the 2020 inductees.
Rice is the seventh Alaskan to receive this honor. The Hall of Fame recognizes 4-H volunteers, Cooperative Extension Service professionals, staff and others who made a significant impact on the 4-H youth program at the local, state or national level.
Rice helped bring 4-H in Kodiak in the 1970s and stayed involved as a leader and 4-H council member for 46 years. A master gardener, she worked to establish two community gardens in Kodiak, including one in which 4-H members raise produce for their families and the local homeless shelter. She was also active in other organizations, serving on the first Kodak State Fair Board and with the Alaska Farm Bureau, which gave her its Agriculture Appreciation Award in 2019.
Kodiak 4-H program assistant Kate Schaberg and 4-H leader Barbara Zimmerman nominated Rice for the award. Rice said she grew up with 4-H in Wyoming. “It was where I got so much of my basic education, through 4-H,” she said. She raised sheep and learned about home economics and interior decorating.
When her children got to be of 4-H age, she said, “I wanted to have that for my kids.”
Schaberg said, “Because of her determination to make it happen, countless youth, in addition to her own, have been touched by 4-H in Kodiak.”
Schaberg said many of the current traditions of Kodiak 4-H, including the popular community sourdough pancake breakfast fundraiser, started with Rice. One year, Rice said she prepared 10 5-gallon buckets of sourdough batter for the event.
