Gwen Broussard to be honored at 4-H Achievement Day

The 2016 Vermilion Parish 4-H Achievement Day will be held this Saturday, March 19, 2016 at Kaplan High School.
The day will be dedicated to Gwen Broussard at the events opening assembly at 8:00 a.m. Achievement Day is the largest, most important 4-H event of the year. It involves about 500 4-H’ers from throughout the parish, competing in 46 contests and exhibits to demonstrate skills and knowledge gained during the club year.
It is fitting that this important event be dedicated to Mrs. Gwen Broussard, a 20 year 4-H leader in Vermilion Parish. She began her involvement with 4-H as a member at Herod Elementary and Seventh Ward Elementary and her favorite projects were personal development and arts and crafts. She attended 4-H Camp Grant Walker as a camper when Terril Faul was a 4-H Agent. Her career as a 4-H Leader began as most do, with the involvement of her children in the club. Her oldest boys started in the beef project and Gwen became a livestock project leader when they began. It wasn’t long before 4-H Agent, Hilton Waits, recognized her positive attitude and willingness to invest her time and energy in the program and asked her to take on greater roles in the livestock program. She graduated from the 4-H Advanced Livestock Leader Training program and began assisting with livestock clinics, show organization and livestock projects. She has taken on roles with State and National Junior Braford Associations organizing shows and educational activities for the young people involved.
As her children began to expand their interests in 4-H, so too, did Gwen. She served as Jr. Leader Club Advisor for the past 10 years working with every phase of Jr. Leader Club activities, planning and conducting community service and study projects, fundraising, monthly meeting plans and chaperoning awards and educational trips. Most noteworthy, in this role, is perhaps her leadership in developing the Jr. Leader Steak Dinner which has raised well over $25,000 to benefit the Jr. Leaders and St. Jude’s Hospital.
She has served as board member of the Vermilion 4-H Foundation for seven years. And also as Co-Chair she has played a pivotal role in record breaking fundraising efforts during her tenure which includes the establishment and continuation of the annual sporting clay shoot.
Gwen has not limited her service to 4-H to Vermilion Parish, she also has served as an advisor to the Louisiana State Food & Fitness Board for five years and chaperoned the Entomology and Next Food Star awards trips. Gwen also saw the value of record books and always encouraged her children and others to compete in the parish and state contests. She competed with her volunteer records and won the Club Congress award trip to Atlanta, GA. Gwen was also selected to lead the state’s delegation to National 4-H Conference in Washington, DC and has also attended the Strengthening Extension Advisory Leaders (SEAL) Conference in Charlotte, NC.
While her leadership roles are impressive there is no job too small for Gwen either. Judging contests, cooking for events, setting up the barn for shows, training 4-H’ers for 4-H University, she helps where needed and makes sure things get done. She’s served as a project and activity leader at all of her children’s school clubs including Seventh Ward, F.I.E.B., J. H. Williams, Mt. Carmel and Abbeville High.
In the words of Mrs. Shannan Waits, “Gwen is among the most dependable leaders I have had the privilege of working with. She is a hard worker and has great ideas and the ability to turn those ideas into reality.”
Gwen has shared her leadership with other organizations, as well, including serving as President of the Vermilion Cattlewomen’s Association and working with Vermilion and Lafayette Farm Bureau Federations.
She is the wife of Timothy Broussard, proud mother of seven children, Jared, Nicholas, Leah, Britney, Marcus, Annemarie and Christopher who have all been active in 4-H and is a member of the St. James Chapel Catholic Church. She is the daughter of Elda T. Huval and the late Daniel Wade Huval and the grandmother of Rhys Paul Broussard.
“We often wonder why someone would dedicate so much time and effort to 4-H and when asked why,” Gwen stated. “I recognized the value 4-H has in the development of young people and the more involved I became the more impact I saw on my children as well as others. And it helped me, too. I’m a much more confident person because of being a 4-H Leader.”
Because of her willingness to lead young people, her dedication to the success of 4-H in Vermilion Parish and her willingness to share her positive energy with the program, it is with great gratitude and respect that the 4-H members of Vermilion Parish dedicate the 2016 4-H Achievement Day to Gwen Broussard.