In April, hundreds of youth from across the United States gathered in Arlington, Virginia, for the annual National 4-H Conference. Hosted by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, participants networked with 4-H members from across the country and partnered with government departments to address real-world concerns regarding agriculture and rural America.
This year, Nebraska made history with two representatives on the national leadership team — Dawson County’s Preston Beattie and Webster County’s Libby Macklin — a first for Nebraska youth participating in the conference.
“This was a great opportunity for our Nebraska youth,” said Lindsay Shearer, foundations relations coordinator at 4-H Youth Development.
The delegates and leaders are “high-achieving 4-H-ers who demonstrate a commitment to our state, who are highly involved in 4-H in their communities and want to learn about the federal level of advocating for agriculture,” she said.
The conference is not simply a retreat; it functions as a “working conference,” said Makayla Burg in the Nebraska State 4-H office. Youth teams collaborate with governmental departments, such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and spend three days workshopping real-world issues and policies delivered to them by those departments, such as how artificial intelligence affects agriculture. The teams then present solutions to department representatives, complete with researched data, action steps and predicted results.
Beattie and Macklin attended the conference in previous years as delegates. This year, as part of the leadership team, they helped delegates navigate the procedures of the conference, made sure they connected with department representatives at the scheduled times, and facilitated the development of projects and presentations.
Beattie, a high school senior from Sumner, has participated in 4-H for as long as he can remember. He started as a Clover Kid, has shown livestock, judged meat and competed in the Quiz Bowl on the national level. In 2025, he attended the National Conference and enjoyed it so much he applied to the leadership team for this year.
As he was a similar age as many of the attendees, Beattie said a big part of his role was to make them feel comfortable and enjoy the conference. He answered questions and kept them on track for different meetings. He also organized games between workshop sessions, played music and, at evening ceremonies, introduced keynote speakers.
“As a delegate, I had a great time, so I wanted to go back,” Beattie said. “I had to miss my senior prom, but I didn’t think twice about it. I was like, let’s do it. And I’m glad I did. … It’s a lot of learning for us, but it’s also a great opportunity for us to lead.”
Macklin, a Husker student from Blue Hill, was selected to be a collegiate facilitator on the leadership team. She, too, enrolled as a Clover Kid and has spent her 4-H career showing livestock and participating in public speaking and music contests, among other projects. At a National Roundup in Denver for public speaking, she realized how much she enjoyed connecting with 4-H members from across the country. That led to her attending the National Conference as a youth delegate, and again this year as a leader and collegiate facilitator.
“I’ve definitely grown a lot through 4-H, and it’s been a really big part of my personal and professional development,” Macklin said. “It’s just been such a valuable experience for me, and it makes me happy that I can still be involved, even though I am now aged out of the program.”
While youth leaders focus on conference experiences and activities, collegiate facilitators work with delegate teams as they develop presentations for the federal agencies. Macklin helped her students stay focused on their key issue — workforce development in rural America — manage their time, divide responsibilities and collaborate effectively. The role blends mentorship, project management and leadership, Macklin said, while helping delegates navigate the professional environment of the federal government and presenting solutions to real-world issues.
For Macklin, the leadership experience brought her full circle, as she recalled her first out-of-state conference and the joy of connecting with others.
“I was one of the few from the Midwest,” she said. “But I think it’s a two-way street. A lot of good comes from when we can collaborate with other states’ programs, learn from them and take that information back home.”
While the leadership role proved to be a growing experience for Beattie and Macklin, the youth delegates from Nebraska also made their mark at the conference.
“Two of our groups, right after their presentations, were asked to, essentially, continue the work they started and do some next steps,” Wilton said. “The USDA Office of Partnerships and Public Engagement asked the youth to continue to develop their project into a two-pager that they could submit to other departments at the USDA to further the solution that they came up with. And our youth who worked with the Environmental Protection Agency had a very similar experience.”
Beattie will enroll in the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources next fall, bringing what he learned at the conference with him.
“It made me realize, I can be a leader at this age, to people around me, to even people that are older than me,” he said. “We can make a difference.”
Macklin said she saw the National Conference’s potential for youth delegates.
“It is a working conference, and I really enjoy that we’re creating something cool and tangible, and something that could be instated,” she said. “The environment there is so supportive and uplifting. There’s so many high-quality 4-H-ers in one place, and I think when that happens, so many other cool things happen.”
