Josh Culp

For fun, I do 4H. I’m a 20-year 4H leader. I was a seven-year member, but because I started too late I aged out. I joined 4H to compete with my brother, because by golly if he can do it, I can do it better.

My club is the 21st Century 4H Club. We do a lot of the non-livestock projects, so the electrical, photography, fine arts, food, clothing, entomology. A lot of our focus is on getting the kids involved in the community and doing community activities like raking leaves for the neighbors, or we come out here to the Elkhart County 4H Fairgrounds and we help clean up every year. We make donations to The Window, Inc. and help with Soup Of Success. We do those things so the kids get acclimated to doing community service.

I grew up south of Goshen, but it was within Elkhart Township so I attended Goshen High School. We moved to New Paris for about 10 years, and now we live north of Goshen in Jefferson Township.

I work for New Paris Telephone. I’m the senior network technician. I’ve been doing that for 18 years. I’ve been an Elkhart County 4H Fair Board member for 10 years and came on as a director with the New Paris Chamber of Commerce.

4H: That’s where it’s at. That’s where my heart sits. The kids work all year long. Like Latch Hook: They start the week after the fair and they get their patterns and they work on them maybe two or three hours a week. The photography projects are the same way. Clothing: Some of those kids start planning the next week to figure out what they’re going to do, what pattern they’re going to do, and they start looking for those deals and materials for that next project. 4H is year-round.

Fair week has been great. Busy, but great. As fair president, you get to go to as many different events as possible. You get to view things you don’t normally get to see.

You can’t come to the fair without touching base at Food Row. Check out the commercial buildings and the midway. Whatever fits your fancy as far as entertainment, we’ve got it.

Goshen is such a nice community. There are so many parks to visit and spend time in. First Fridays is always fun to be able to catch up and see people. It’s just such a wonderful, calm, pleasant place to live.