Brenda Lacey has retired from her position as Inyo-Mono 4-H Program Representative after 15 years to return to teaching and spend more time with family. Here, she enjoys a moment with her daughters, Molly, 13, and Katie, 9, and mother, Irene Turner, at a retirement party held in her honor June 27. Photo submitted

By Darcy Ellis
Editor

7-5-2008

It is with a mixture of pride and sadness that Brenda Lacey leaves her longheld post as the 4-H Program Representative for Inyo and Mono counties.
She’s also retiring with a profound sense of gratitude not only for the experiences – heartwarming, exhilarating, enlightening – that the job allowed her over the past 15 years, but for the countless community volunteers, leaders and officials who worked tirelessly and without question to inspire and teach local youth and help keep the 4-H Program and its 12 clubs from Crowley Lake to Lone Pine alive and well.
Whether through donations of time, money or labor to club projects, by taking on the role of club leader or providing support for the program as a whole, the contributions of these community members, Lacey said, made her job easier and the 4-H experiences of hundreds of young men and women in Inyo and Mono counties that much better. 

“I am eternally grateful to all the leaders, volunteers, parents and community members who have been so helpful and supportive and helped make this a great 4-H program for our youth,” Lacey said. “I especially want to thank Cathy Ellis,” who, up until a recent reassignment, assisted Lacey with 4-H affairs in the UC Cooperative Extension Office in Bishop for the past 12 years. “Without her and all that she did, I couldn’t have accomplished all that I wanted to with the 4-H Program.”
Lacey counts many successes and accomplishments during her 15-year tenure as 4-H Program Rep, and for that alone has accumulated a significant base of admirers and supporters since she took over the post when Rick Scott retired in 1993.
Included among those supporters is Tri-County Fairgrounds CEO Jim Tatum, who has enjoyed a close working relationship with Lacey for all but one of his 16 years at his job, including during the annual Junior Livestock Show, Tri-County Fair and various other 4-H events that required the clubs to use fairgrounds facilities.
“It was always a pleasure working with Brenda,” he said. “She had a lot of enthusiasm and an incredible amount of desire to do good things for young people.”
In wholehearted agreement is Robin Johnston-Cox, a longtime 4-H community leader whose five children all participated in the program.
“Brenda represents what 4-H stands for – dedication, hard work and commitment,” she said. “All of our children – Megan, Hillary, Emily,  Bradley and Jared – have benefited from Brenda’s positive energy, enthusiasm and absolute devotion to the 4-H program.”

Back in 1993, the Independence resident and mother of two – Molly is 13 and Katie is 9 – had just relocated to the area after marrying Mark Lacey, whose family owns ranchlands from Bridgeport to Olancha and whom she met while attending college at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
Applying for the job of 4-H Program Rep seemed a natural progression for Lacey, who long ago had fallen in love with both animal and agriculture sciences as well as teaching. Born in Long Beach, Lacey grew up in Ventura and joined her first 4-H Club in fourth grade. She continued with the program through her high school career, and while studying Animal Science at Cal Poly and working toward her teaching credential, took time out to serve as a community 4-H leader. After graduating with a Masters in Agricultural Science, Lacey moved to Exeter where she taught high school ag and veterinary science for four years, and continued as a 4-H club leader.
While living in Independence, Lacey worked as a substitute teacher for a while and helped on the Lacey family ranch until Scott’s retirement presented yet another opportunity to participate in 4-H, while also utilizing her teaching skills and ag and animal science knowledge.
“Basically my involvement in 4-H has been lifelong, or at least for the past – I might date myself here – but let’s say 35ish years,” Lacey said, “and I have loved every minute of it.”
That love is not only evident but, according to those who have worked closely with her, has translated into several additions and improvements to the overall 4-H Program – including HI-4-H for high school-age members and countywide 4-H projects.
“With Inyo and Mono having such a sparse population, I found it necessary to combine resource work across clubs to have more choices for the 4-Hers,” Lacey explained of the latter addition to the program. “This has allowed Inyo and Mono counties to have double the project choices other counties might have.”
Other accomplishments of which Lacey is proud include the construction of the 4-H Livestock Facility and the completion of the 4-H Centennial Mural at the fairgrounds.
Tatum, for one, is a big fan of the mural, which he said enhances the facilities aesthetically but also helps create “a focus for 4-H” in the community. According to Tatum, while the mural is located at the fairgrounds, the project was “100 percent Brenda Lacey.”
Lacey, on the other hand, said that neither the livestock facility nor mural “could have happened without the leaders, parents and businesses that I had the pleasure of working with.”
She also gives much credit for her successes to her predecessor, Rick Scott, and the program he left in place, as well as the community that helps provide direction through input. “(Rick) was so helpful. I based the program on what he had developed and just added to it,” Lacey said. “The framework of any 4-H program is in place throughout the state – I just put my own touch on events and projects. However, 4-H is guided by the community. Everything that happens is based on what the people of Inyo and Mono – the 4-Hers, leaders and parents – want to see. That is the program that the Cooperative Extension Office delivers. I am just the person who sets it in motion and conducts their directives.”
Lacey might make it sound easier said than done, and indeed she admits the post comes with a fair amount of challenges – but that’s been quite alright with her.
“The big challenges are what I like best, how to put events together, have people work for a common goal to bring fun and learning to youth,” she said. “This community is just amazing. If something doesn’t work or there is a better way, the creativity and let’s-get-the-job-done spirit always comes through – and is to be commended. I have worked with and for so many great organizations and 4-H in these two counties is unbelievable.”
Aside from the challenges, Lacey said what she enjoyed the most over the past 15 years, and what left the largest impression on her, were the interactions with the people she encountered in the various facets of her job.
“The most fun I had was working with 4-H members, leaders and their families. It has been a joy to watch these kids grow up and I love looking back through their record books and seeing how much they have done in 4-H from fourth grade through their senior year,” she said. “The best part of the job is the people and making things happen. Working with 25 high school kids to put on an Achievement Night spaghetti dinner for 500 and having it run perfectly; watching the 4-Her who was so afraid to get up and give a demonstration at the workshop turn around and deliver it like a pro; having seniors come back and say how all the things they learned in 4-H helped them in an interview, at college or at their job – then I know the leaders I helped train and the program are serving the youth in the best way it can.”
Going one step further, Lacey always knew she was doing the best job she could by essentially making the 4-H Program one known for both accessibility and opportunity.
“The program rep requirements are spread all over the place, but the main thing is to be a ‘good people person,’ and I think I have accomplished that,” Lacey said. “I gets hugs and thank yous all the time from the members, leaders and parents. Parents want to know their child is valued and they have a shot at doing anything, from giving a demonstration, to serving as an officer in the club or winning grand champion at the fair. It’s the job of the program rep to provide the opportunity to do all those things.”
According to Lacey’s supporters, her leadership has created a fine tradition for the 4-H program.
“I’m going to miss Brenda. She has been one of finest 4-H reps that I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with, and she has been a great friend,” said Cindy Kitts, longtime livestock show superintendent throughout California. “Brenda really made the 4-H Program in Inyo and Mono counties work, and she will be missed greatly. She has done an outstanding job as the representative for the Inyo-Mono Farm Bureau’s California Foundation for Ag in the Classroom. I wish her the very best.”
Johnston-Cox also wanted to bid Lacey a fond goodbye as she retires, but also offer some gratitude.
“Her presence will be missed but her impression on our children about what it means to work hard and commit yourself to a goal is everlasting,” Johnston-Cox said. “Individuals like Brenda Lacey are few and far between. Thank you, Brenda, for your presence in our children’s lives.”
Suzie Olson, another longtime 4-H community leader, offered similar sentiments. “Somebody’s got some big shoes to fill – Brenda was amazing. She did so much for the kids and the community. She will truly be missed.”
Tatum, also wishing “Brenda good luck in her future endeavors,” predicted Lacey won’t be out of the community service business for very long.
“I don’t think we’ve seen the last of the Brenda Lacey,” he said. “I think we’ll get to have her around for quite a while.”
Turns out, he’s right.
Lacey plans to continue her involvement in 4-H as the leader of the Lone Pine club, as well as teach ag science and equestrian science to the Future Farmers of America students at Lone Pine High School.
She also plans to spend more time with her husband, Mark – “He’ll have me on horseback working cattle on the ranch, ASAP,” Lacey said – and her daughters, Molly and Katie.
As Lacey, the figure who has helped guide so many young men and women to new stages  of their lives, prepares for a new chapter in her own, she can leave the 4-H Program confident in knowing she served it well.
“Brenda is leaving this office with a legacy that will be hard to live up to,” said Ellis. “She went above and beyond the call of duty – taking phone calls day and night at her home and on the weekends from 4-H members and leaders needing assistance. She added so much to the program and, most importantly, she touched the lives of a lot of kids and parents.”