DAHINDA — Ellis Rogers, 18, of Dahinda, was named a national runner-up for the 2025 National 4-H Youth in Action Award, one of 16 youth nationwide to earn recognition from the National 4-H Council.
Rogers has been involved with 4-H since she was 8. Her participation in 4-H’s equine program included hippology, horse speaking, horse bowl and horse judging. Hippology is horse science; horse speaking is public speaking about horses; horse bowl is similar to Scholastic Bowl, and horse judging involves learning the facets of equine competitions. Rogers has owned horses since she was in eighth grade.
As a high school senior, Rogers served on the Illinois state teams for horse judging and hippology. The top four individuals in Illinois participated in a national contest in Kentucky, where Rogers’ horse-judging team placed fourth. Their hippology team won the national championship.
While equine programs might conjure images of horse barns, stalls and practice rings, the 4-H equine program is academic and leadership-centered.
“I guess the award itself is a kind of leadership award,” Rogers said. “In my application, I talked a lot about playing a big sister role to the junior members of the county team.”
The team she’s on through Galesburg’s University of Illinois Extension center includes youth between the ages of 8 and 18.
Rogers said her love for science led her into the 4-H program from the start. “We all go into one room, and I help out a lot of the younger kids try to go through and understand what’s going on,” she said. “We don’t touch any horses during any of these classes. No riding. Just informational stuff.”
The program’s goal is to develop equine professionals, Rogers said. She is now a freshman at Morningside University in Sioux City, Iowa, double-majoring in applied agriculture and biology with the intention of becoming a mixed-animal veterinarian.
Rogers has worked in several veterinary clinics since her freshman year in high school. When she’s home on college breaks, she continues to work as a veterinary assistant at Lunden Animal Hospital in Oneida. She said she floats throughout the clinic, taking on various roles—from checking in patients to assisting with surgeries.
Rogers knows the road to becoming a veterinarian is long and challenging. “There are only 30 or so vet schools in the country,” she said. “I would love to go to U of I because that’s in state, and I have friends there. But their acceptance rate is about 10 percent.”
When asked about her plan B if veterinary school doesn’t play out, she said, “Plan B is not to let plan A fail.”
Rogers said she’d eventually like to return to Dahinda and the area. “I love rural medicine. Being able to walk out in public and have people recognize you from the clinic has been so cool,” she said. “Making a difference feels a lot more impactful in the smaller towns. I do love the community. It’s hard to stay away from that.”
Illinois 4-H operates through University of Illinois Extension, offering youth across the state opportunities to learn practical skills, take on leadership roles and connect their interests to real-world projects.
