Marilyn Norman has been a 4-H leader in Tioga Co. for over 50 years and serves as organizational leader for the 75 member Liberty Community 4-H Club. As a 4-H member in 1947, she proudly displayed her first 4-H sewing project – a pink dress with cap sleeves. She continued sewing and still uses her skills to make blankets for new babies or dresses for younger family members. Her other projects included cooking, care of the home, flowers, gardening, swine, poultry, and entomology. She helped craft many floats and displays to promote 4-H – and still does. She was active in county council and always helped others get their projects ready for the fair. In 1957 she won a girl’s state achievement award and attended National 4-H Congress.
In her tenure as a leader, she has accomplished a great deal by encouraging countless members to write presentations or speeches, coaching 9 award winning foods and nutrition teams, 4 flower judging teams, 2 vegetable teams, 3 consumer bowl teams, 10 Foods and Nutrition teams, many fashion review participants, and 5 orienteering teams. Twenty-three attended National 4-H Congress and several won scholarships. Marilyn also volunteers at the school, teaches Sunday school, plays the organ at church, bakes cookies for the Red Cross, serves as Horticultural Chairman for the Tioga County Fair and joins the Liberty quilting group to construct quilts for Project Linus, a national organization that makes blankets for seriously ill children.
