For 16 years, Becca Fint-Clark has been a 4-H fixture in Monongalia County.
Clark, a 4-H agent with WVU’s Extension Service, has been schooling pre-teens and teens for that long on topics from environmental awareness to money management.
If you want your offspring to learn the rudiments of computer coding, she’s got a lesson plan.
Same for the fundamentals of Newtonian physics.
Heck, she can even teach a youngster how to make a flashlight on the fly.
(Any old-school, Mountain State-MacGyver would be proud — key components include a Popsicle stick, a battery, copper tape and a paper clip).
Wednesday, her alma mater of WVU crafted something for her.
DIY-illumination device or no, she never saw it coming.
The university’s Council for Gender Equity presented Clark with its Mary Catherine Buswell Award for service, named for the late English professor who was a proponent of women’s rights, in the classroom and workplace.
“I was honored when I found out,” Clark said, “and I was also a little surprised, to tell you the truth.”
That’s because Clark, who leads education efforts in Mon in her roles in 4-H and the Extension Service, doesn’t see necessarily what she does as “Girl Power,” she said.
Call what she does a kid-power mission, she said.
Helping girls and boys, in the elementary- and middle-school years, in particular, to get excited and engaged about learning and their place in the world around them.
It’s about mindfulness and motivation, she said.
Which is why 4-H’ers under her watch often fan out to food pantries and senior centers during outreach going beyond four walls of any classroom.
“Well, it is about their place in the world,” she said.
“I have been at this for 16 years and the kids I started out with are now adults who are starting to have kids of their own,” Clark continued.
“I’m grateful to have shared their lives and I hope I’ve gotten to make at least a little bit of an impact. I want them to know they achieve and make an impact, too.”
Buswell honorees become that by way of nomination.
One of Clark’s nominators wrote: “Becca goes above and beyond to ensure that youth are provided with valuable resources to help them grow into positive, service-minded adults.”
If that’s true, Clark said, you can thank her mother.
The late Stacy Shockley Fint was a Rotary Exchange student for a year in Brazil as a high-schooler.
The future matriarch and educator came home with a fluency in Portuguese and an even greater passion for learning.
She went on to teach English as a second language and later directed WVU’s Intensive English Program — where she ended up being a de facto mom to students from across the globe in Morgantown.
A handmade flashlight can make for a pretty-cool glow, Clark said.
Mrs. Fint, though, her daughter said, was a klieg light, who, in turn, made her students shine accordingly.
“I always want to make my mom proud,” Clark said. “I wish I could share this award with her.”
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