4-H's Cowboy Ethics Program

Four years ago a 4-H program called Cowboy Ethics was created. Colorado 4-H Foundation Executive Director Gary Small shares more details about this unique and valuable program.
Small: “The program has trained 75 extension agents to go out in the state and present cowboy ethic programs. The ethics are based on the 10 core principles outlined in Jim Owen’s book, “Cowboy Ethics: What Wall Street Could Learn from the Code of the West.” There is a lot of hands-on activities in that curriculum. They learn about how some things aren’t for sale; where would you draw the line; always take pride in your work. A lot of cool activities that help support those concepts. We’ve also done programing at the National Western Stockshow — not this year but in 2015. We operated a booth there to teach the ethics to the kids. We’ve also worked with the school tours at National Western for two years there as well.”
The program has been used for students from five years to 18 years of age. Small says that it can even sometimes challenge parents’ behavior.
Small: “A lot of younger kids are looking at what their parents are doing and asking, ‘How does that follow this core principle or that core principle?’”