Tar Heel 4-H'ers Win Honors at Madison Square Garden Poultry Show in New York City, Feb. 1, 1921

Tar Heel boys and girls captured three prizes on their poultry club exhibit at the Madison Square Garden Poultry Show in New York City. The club birds were entered in open competition with the professional breeders of the United States, Canada and england, and North Carolina was the only state represented by a club exhibit.

In black Langshan hens the North Carolina entry took second place with a bird pronounced one of the most wonderfully colored hens ever seen. It failed to place first because a few tail feathers were bent and broken during the lost trip north.

Among the Buff Plymouth Rock cockerels, with 17 entries, a North Carolina club bird took third prize; while in the pullet class a club bird took fifth among 15 entries. The Buff Plymouth pullet class was one of the “hottest” classes in Madison Square show has seen in years, according to A.G. Oliver, in charge of poultry clubs in North Carolina.

Throughout the show a large display cage containing 10 Rhode Island Red cockerels bearing a label “North Carolina Boys and Girls Poultry Clubs” occupied the center of the Garden, next to the big fountain and fancy waterfowl exhibit. The “reds” attracted much attention and comment and the 10 birds were sold at the close of the show to 10 different breeders.

From The Dunn Dispatch, February 1, 1921. The poultry clubs of 100 years ago are the predecessors to today's 4-H Clubs.