BEM — Tattered, torn, and yellowed newspaper clippings, black and white photographs with textured edges, and ruled ledger books with handwritten livestock records were among memorabilia on display last Wednesday at St. John’s United Church of Christ at Bem — home of the Bem 4-H Club since the early 1960s.

Current and alumni members of Bem 4-H Club held a Nov. 11 reunion dinner celebrating the club’s founding on Nov. 3, 1949. Longtime leader Fern Kramme was among the distinguished guests.

A newspaper clipping from 1951 noted charter member Malvern “Nub” Huebner’s swine project with the then 2-year-old club had a combined weight of 364 pounds for 10 piglets at the 56-day weaning period. Huebner’s records project, which included photographs and a newspaper clip from The Republican, noted his project pigs were 142 pounds heavier as a group than the average of 4-H record keepers across Missouri.

The group shared a pot-luck meal in the church basement.

University Extension officials said Bem 4-H is one of the oldest clubs in the area. Woollam 4-H Club formed 69 years ago, according to Extension records. Woollam 4-H Club was organizedin 1940 and Bay 4-H was formed in 1947 — just two years before Bem’s club was started.

Extension officials are attempting to compile a complete record of all the county 4-H clubs’ longevity marks. If you have old 4-H Club record books from the 1930s or 1940s from Gasconade County in family collections, Extension officials would like to see them and have a chance to copy them before they are lost forever.

University Extension came to the county in 1933, according to Extension records. 4-H began in 1902 but likely did not arrive in Gasconade County until University Extension services arrived locally in the early 1930s.

A listing from 1936 noted 13 4-H Clubs in the county, said the Extension’s Virginia Buschmeyer. That list, however, did not have the names of each of those chapters listed, she said. Other lists may exist, she said, which could shed more light on the county’s 4-H history.

A file cabinet of old record books remains to be fully research­ed. If anyone has record books to share, they are asked to call University Extension at (573) 437-2165.

Buschmeyer joked that once she had the chance to take a look into that file cabinet, she was certain she would be there for quite a while. She noted there would certainly be many family connections made as she researched the old records.