4-H hunter discipline shooter qualifies for nationals

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) - 4-H is not the same old 4-H that was just animals, gardening and sewing.

Today's 4-H has almost anything you can think of for kids, and we'll introduce you to someone who found out that hunting disciplines can take you far.

"I'm really excited with finding out that this actually existed," Aaliece Rasmussen said. "And that just clips on to the string, pull it back and…Let it fly."

Cg  paige wray/ bonneville co 4-h educator

"4-H is such a great program for our kids," Bonneville County 4-H educator Paige Wray said. "It's built off of volunteers and people like we have in our background here that are just willing to help and be part be there for the kids."

"My parents are very encouraging," Rasmussen said. "They each had their sports when they were kids, and so this being my sport, they are very encouraging to help me get through it because their parents were there. They want to be there and they and they know some of these things.

And so they're like, hey, let me help. And so they're they're teaching me a lot of this."

"I started doing it. I was like, this is a lot more fun than I realized and it just took off from there." 

"It's really exciting. It's a little exhilarating, but it's really it's nice to know that you figured it out after taking that time, because that time was then worth it."

"We're highlighting our shooting sports program today, but we have animal programs, we have robotics programs, we have cooking and sewing programs. Almost anything that you can think of that your kids are interested in 4-h is a pathway for them to be able to do that."

"Four h has just really become part of my lifestyle. It was more of a challenge than I thought because there's a lot more to it than originally believed. My next step is practice identification. We're coming up on crunch time and getting things ready. We just got some more skulls in to help me with my identification, so I got to practice with those. It's honestly just crunch time, and then we realized, hey, I can go to nationals with this."

Since the Bonneville County Fairgrounds moved south of Idaho Falls, there is more room for the 4-H program to grow, and they are looking for more volunteers and kids to participate.

Rasmussen will be heading to Grand Island, Nebraska to compete in the national competition.