Every first Monday of the month, for the last 50
years, it’s easy to find Corine Miller. A leader
of the 80-member Victory Workers 4-H Club in
Pittsfield, you can find Miller mentoring and
motivating her community’s youth. As a former
10-year 4-H member, she says to “Make the Best
Better” has been the standard for her life,
career and her work with the over 3,000 youth
she has touched as a New Hampshire 4-H
volunteer.
Because of her dedication and service to 4-H,
she was named as the 2008 National 4-H Hall of
Fame Laureate from New Hampshire. Miller and
members of her family, along with UNH
Cooperative Extension 4-H Youth Development
Program Leader Wendy Brock, traveled to
Washington, D.C., last Friday for the awards
ceremony at the National 4-H Center. Miller was
only one of 17 nation-wide who received the
honor this year.
Involved in many aspects of the club, from
teaching heritage basket weaving, 4-H records,
clothing and textiles, public speaking, and
photography, to organizing community service
projects, Miller also engages other volunteers
to help provide the expertise in other areas
that interest the youth. Under her leadership,
annual fundraisers provide scholarships for
about 60 members to attend UNH 4-H Camp.
At the county level, Miller has served as past
treasurer and secretary of the Merrimack County
Leaders Association and is a member of the
County 4-H Advisory Council. At the state level,
she has served on many 4-H curriculum committees
in the areas of family and consumer science. She
has worked to establish the Ruth Kimball
Endowment of over $80,000 for the 4-H Foundation
of New Hampshire, and supports the statewide
golf tournament.
Miller says she has had the opportunity to see
youth grow up into “good citizens.” She added,
“It’s when they return to the 4-H program as a
teacher or with their own children that you
know it made a difference.” Miller’s mother,
Ruth Kimball was inducted into the first class
of the National 4-H Hall of Laureates in 2002.
The Country Quilters are back in stitches
meeting monthly at the Oscar Foss Memorial
Library, Ctr. Barnstead NH. The group meets
monthly from 6:30-8:30 p.m. on the third
Wednesday of each month. Dues are $15.00
annually. Meeting this year will center on
making community service quilts, tips,
techniques, landscape wall hanging, UFO projects
and placements. The groups recently finished
their community service quilts and are donating
them to the Quilts of Valor Program for wounded
soldiers. Our quilts will be shipped to a
Chaplain in Afghanistan and presented to injured
soldiers. Local quilts can get more information
from
www.qov.com Guild members who worked on this
project are: Elaine Coffey, Virginia Pearson,
Corine Miller, Judey Clemons, Barbara Nelson,
Diane Norton, Deb Randall, Sherry Strickland,
Cheryl Wood and Delores Fairburn. A group photo
was taken at the September meeting before
shipping the quilts. Missing from the photo was
Delores Fairburn, Diane Norton, Sherry
Strickland and Barbara Nelson.