DATE:     7/17/96   
CONTACT:  Toni Pipkins, (803) 929-6030
WRITER:   Tom Lollis, (803) 284-3343

4-H Honors Top Four
Members in the State

     CLEMSON -- Two youths with ties to Orangeburg County and one
each from Chester and Charleston counties claimed the state's top
4-H award, the Clemson University Presidential Tray, during the
annual State 4-H Congress July 9 in Columbia.
     Clemson University President Constantine Curris presented
the awards Tuesday night to Rebecca Ann Bozard and Matt Grier of
the Orangeburg County 4-H program, Tracy Laws of Chester County
and Jason Osgood of Charleston County.
     Bozard, 18, is the daughter of Marvin and Deni Bozard of the
Four Holes community near Orangeburg. She has been a member of 4-H for eight years. She is a graduate of Edisto High School, where
she was a member of the National Honor Society and co-editor of
the school yearbook.
     Her main project area in 4-H has been food and nutrition,
and she was a state winner in that area two years ago. Her
interest in foods has gotten her involved with the soup kitchen
run by her church and with the six acres of pick-your-own
strawberries grown by her family. Often, she picks berries to
take to shut-ins. She plans to major in food packaging science at
Clemson University.
     Bozard has served as vice president of her Fellowship of
Christian Athletes group. She sings with the youth choir, plays
handbells and plays the piano for the young children's choir at
her church. She has attended both the National 4-H Conference in
Washington, D.C. and the National 4-H Congress in Orlando, Fla.
     Grier, 17, is the son of Gary and Susan J. Grier. They live
on a farm in rural Calhoun County near Gaston, but he
participates in the Orangeburg County 4-H program because it has
the closest horse club.
     A member of 4-H for eight years, he is a rising senior at
Swansea High School, where he has served as vice president of the
Art Club and the Beta Club.  He has been on the school track and
field team for three years and Outstanding English Student for
two years in a row.
     Animals -- both domestic and wild -- occupy a large portion
of Grier's life. On the family farm can be found horses, burros,
chickens, quail, peacocks, geese, dogs and cats, and buffalo.
     He raises the bobwhite quail and the peacocks as part of his
4-H wildlife project, an area in which he was a state winner two
years ago. That won him a trip to the National 4-H Congress in
Orlando. Two of the horses on the farm are wild mustangs which
his family adopted under a Bureau of Land Management program.
      Laws, 16, is the daughter of Janice Counterman of Chester.
She has been a member of 4-H since she was 5, when her 
grandfather enrolled her and his five other grandchildren in the
4-H horse club, and then taught his grandchildren: "Never give
yourself to doubt -- only to prove you can do it."
     Laws is a rising senior at Chester High School. She was a
member of the Beta Club, show choir, cheerleading squad, Spanish
Club, and music honor society, and was elected student body
president for the 1996-97 school year.
     She joined the dairy club in 1993, and has won over $300 in
prize money at 4-H county and state shows. 
     Osgood, 18, is the son of Orville and Betty Osgood of Moncks
Corner. He has been in 4-H since 1989.
     He is a graduate of Ferndale Baptist School, where he played
on the school soccer team for three years and two years on the
basketball team. This year he was basketball team captain and an
all-conference player.
     During his seven years as a 4-H'er, Osgood has been involved
in the Charleston Pride Project. He has visited nursing homes and
collected toys for migrant workers.
     Osgood's first love is baking. He not only bakes for his
family, but he also bakes in competition. He has won the Coastal
Carolina Fair bake-off every year since 1991.
                               END