Stringtown Pikers 4-H’ers’ Final Meeting at O.V. Winks

By: Betsy Reason

Tonight’s the last night for a Hamilton County 4-H meeting to take place in the O.V. Winks Building at the Hamilton County 4-H Fairgrounds in Noblesville before the building is torn down.

Stringtown Pikers 4-H Club will meet in the building, and current 4-H leaders have invited past leaders, including Linda McCarty, and current and past members, to attend.

“Our meeting Thursday is just a way to come together and celebrate the club,” said Sara Schaefer, one of the Stringtown Pikers 4-H leaders. “We will have cake to celebrate. Our original leader Linda McCarty plans to attend. Georgia Roudebush has been invited. We have invited old members and their families, as well.” McCarty and her late husband, John, led the club for many decades.

The Stringtown Pikers 4-H Club has been meeting in the Winks building on the third Thursday of each month since at least 1991. I’m sure much longer, but that is when I joined the club and it’s been there at least that long,” Schaefer said. After tonight, Stringtown Pikers’ meetings will move to another Fairgrounds location to be determined.

The O.V. Winks Building, which was named after O.V. Winks, who was county agriculture agent and extension administrator from 1939 to 1966, according to our Purdue Extension Service office, was the first building built at the Hamilton County 4-H Fairgrounds.

With the City of Noblesville widening Pleasant Street, we will soon lose the O.V. Winks and Annex buildings, and the fairgrounds maintenance garage. Plus, a $65 million, three-phrase expansion project will soon begin to update the 40-acre 4-H Fairgrounds to be able to offer a larger array of programming. Construction will begin after the Hamilton County 4-H Fair, which is June 20-24.

Being that the O.V. Winks building will be torn down and a new 8,000-square-foot building, called the Bicentennial Pavilion, a rentable venue to the public, which will run parallel to Pleasant St., will be built to replace the O.V. Winks Building, I take this opportunity to share the history of the building and the individual who the building was named after so many years ago, and a little about the 4-H program.

O.V. Winks was instrumental in raising funds and planning for the building, which was initially called the Home Demonstration Building and was later named after him, the O.V. Winks Building, said Maggie Herrington, of Purdue Extension Hamilton County, when asked about the O.V. Winks history.

“O.V. is credited with taking the Purdue Extension Program to the country of Brazil, where it is still active today,” she said.

I also came across history written by the late Paul Woodward, who was a Hamilton County Co-op Director, 4-H leader, member of Hamilton County 4-H Council, and 70-year 4-H volunteer who impacted and inspired hundreds of youth. He died in 2021 at age 96.

Here’s what he shared 17 years ago, in 2006, when he wrote about the history of the Hamilton County 4-H program and O.V. Winks.

“The number of 4-H members started to multiply in 1948 and after. As the clubs became larger, the clubs had to be broken into smaller clubs. They went from 18 clubs in the county, to 45 or 50 clubs in this county. Federal Hill 4-H Club was organized in 1949. It was one of the expansion 4-H clubs.”

Woodward wrote about how the late Garrick Mallory and Woodward were the 4-H club leaders. “Federal Hill 4-H club usually had 20 to 30 members each year. County agents were always 4-H leaders.” J.B. Todd was County Agent when Woodward joined 4-H in 1935. Todd remained County Agent until 1939, when O.V. Winks became County Agent, until 1966.

The county 4-H Council was organized in the mid-1940s. Nine County Ag agents were on the 4-H Council. One from each township, also the County Agent, Woodward wrote.

“In the 1950s, one woman from each township was elected to the 4-H Council. The 4-H Council members went from nine to 18,” wrote Woodward, who served on the 4-H Council for a number of years.

“The 4-H Fair in the 1935-1946 years lasted about three days. No livestock sales, most of the projects were directed toward rural families. The 4-H fairs were held on the Noblesville city streets,” Woodward penned.

In 1935, cattle were sheltered in the livery stable on Logan Street where the Hamilton County Government Center is now located. The County Fair took place at Forest Park in 1936-37. The first Hamilton County 4-H Fair Livestock Auction was in 1958. Calvin Hiatt was the first chairman of the Livestock Auction Committee, Woodward recalled in his writings.

The 4-H Fair moved out to the present 4-H Fairgrounds on Pleasant Street in Noblesville in 1948. (The 4-H Fair will have been at the current fairgrounds 75 years this year.) Monte Jessup donated 2-½ acres for a fairgrounds. At the time, there was an airport there. The Hamilton County 4-H Council purchased 12 more acres of land from Jessup. The 4-H Council raised more than $40,000 through donations, Woodward wrote. They used that money to construct the current O.V. Winks building and the first swine barn, which was used for small animals and horticulture exhibits. The other buildings were added when the 4-H Council was able to raise donated money to pay for their buildings. Woodward was on the Building and Grounds Committee from 1945 to the next more than 60 years. Many family businesses and organizations donated to the 4-H programs each year. Eli Lilly and Conner Prairie donated $5,000 to start the Building Fund. The County Farm Bureau Inc., donated $5,000 plus the nine townships, Farm Bureau Organization, donated $1,000 to $2,000 each, totaling $10,000. Door-to-door fund drives raised much money for 4-H Building plans, Woodward wrote.

The tax laws in the 1940s prohibited using tax money to build 4-H buildings and grounds. Those laws were changed in the early 1950s, he wrote.

The 4-H buildings that were constructed:

1st – O.V. Winks Building

2nd – Small Animal Building

3rd – Small Animal Building

4th – Cattle Barn

5th – Show Arena

6th – O.V. Winks Building was enlarged

7th – Annex Building

8th – County Ag office “plus an apartment building”

9th – First Horse Show Building and Arena

10th – Cafeteria Building

11th – New Swine Barn

12th – Present County Ag Office and Exhibition Building

13th – Present Horse Barn and Show Arena

O.V. Winks was recognized

When asked about O.V. Winks, county historian David Heighway provided some old Noblesville Ledger newspaper articles.

In a Noblesville Ledger newspaper article, on Dec. 7, 1964, “Over 300 people who wanted to express their ‘thanks and best wishes for the future’” came to an open house for O.V. Winks, the retiring county agriculture agent, who was completing 25 years of service. “The 4-H Building, a project Winks started and completed, was beautifully decorated in keeping with the coming yule season,” the article said. The article went on to describe the party as well as naming everyone who helped.

O.V. Winks died Oct. 9, 1989, at Riverview Hospital. He was 91. In an article the following day, in the Oct. 10, 1989, edition of The Noblesville Ledger, written by Patricia Neuman, readers learned more about O.V. Winks.

Rolla Parsons, Hamilton County Extension Agent-Agriculture, recalled that “Orlando Vanderbilt Winks was known as one of the main instigators of 4-H Clubs in Hamilton County and the state….” (This was the first newspaper article this journalist found with O.V. Winks’ first and middle name.) Born in Williamsport on Aug. 6, 1898, to Orlando and Mary (Vanderbilt) Winks, he had been a Hamilton County resident since 1940. He married Erma Fausett in 1927. He graduated from Shortridge High School in 1916 and ran the mile and two-mile runs for his high school state championship track team that same year. Winks served as a U.S. Marine during 1918 and 1919 in Haiti and Santo Domingo. After his high school graduation, Winks worked six years as a tent manager and platform manager for Community Chautauqua. He graduated from Purdue University in 1924 with a bachelor’s degree in agriculture and went on to be a teacher and assistant football coach at Dekalb County schools until 1928. He was a vocational-agriculture teacher, and track, baseball and basketball coach from 1928 to 1935 at a Cambridge City school. After that, he was a vocational-ag teacher and head of intramural sports at a Brookville school until 1937 when he became county agent for the Cooperative Extension Service in Union County. In 1939, he became a Hamilton County Extension officer, retiring from that job Dec. 12, 1964. During his time at Hamilton County, he was also president of the Indiana State Extension Agents Association in 1952. He received the National Extension Agents Distinguished Service Award in 1954. He was past chairman of Hamilton County Alcoholic Beverage Board, past lieutenant governor and president of Kiwanis Club and a 50-year member. He was former president of Hamilton County Red Cross and received the Jaycee Good Government Award in 1955. He served as chairman of the Hamilton County Ration Board during World War II and an adviser on the Local Selective Service Board. He was a member of Elks Club, Masonic Lodge, Scottish Rite, American Legion, Epsilon Sigma Phi National Honorary Extension Fraternity and Veterans of Foreign Wars. He was a member of the First Presbyterian Church where he was a church elder beginning in 1930 and a member of the church board of trustees.

The late Joanne King, former extension director, said, “O.V. Winks was very interested in the community. He was always trying to make it a better place.”

At this time, I’ve been told that there is not a plan to name any of the new structures after O.V. Winks during this $65 million construction project. I hope that the county considers remembering O.V. Winks in some way at the 4-H Fairgrounds, maybe a plaque with his name and a photo of him and the building, and maybe they’ll keep the “O.V. Winks” building sign and hang the sign on the wall in the Extension Office so that O.V. Winks’ name lives on at the Fairgrounds.

-Betsy Reason writes about people, places and things in Hamilton County. Contact The Times Editor Betsy Reason at betsy@thetimes24-7.com.