To Norway and beyond

Polson sophomore has big dreams

Ryan Harrop’s drive to succeed is obvious. At 16, she leads her local 4H club and has taken home more awards than she can count on both hands, destroys her competition in cross country and participates in the Montana High School Rodeo Barrel Racing events. As a sophomore at Polson High School, she is aiming to be her class valedictorian in two years. 

“It’s going to be hard, though,” Harrop said. “My class is really competitive.” 

Though small in stature, Harrop’s wit, strength and desire for greatness make her presence noticeable. 

She’s extremely driven. Her GPA is a 4.0 and she has maintained an A average since she can remember. “I think I got a B in middle school, and I cried about it for a week,” she said. 

Harrop, though involved in many activities, has really put a lot of focus on her 4H club, Pistols and Ponytails. 

She started her career in 4H competitions in 2010 after spending a few years prior hanging out at fairs with her babysitter, Rachel, and her mother, Lorrie Lake. Harrop said that Lake started her interest in 4H during summers spent at Lake’s house and going to 4H fairs when she was younger. 

During those summers, Lake was the leader of a 4H club in the area called Pistols and Ponytails, a club Lake started. Both of her daughters, Rachel and Rebecca, were involved and at the time it gave Harrop the opportunity to see what these fairs were all about. 

Many of Harrop’s days were spent sitting with Laurie in the poultry barn. Harrop would be around while Lake was judging competitions, staying mainly near her throughout the fairs. 

It wasn’t until she was 8 or 9 that Harrop decided to get involved. Her first competition: Cloverbud art competition. 

She submitted a few paintings and a drawing she had made just for fun. 

“It was just a kids thing, so they weren’t going to judge us too harshly,” she said. 

The next year she got involved with the real deal. 

Harrop started with a dog project. Her first year was with a family pet and her project involved training her dog in three categories: agility, rally, and showmanship. 

Her second year was also dedicated to a dog project. It wasn’t until her third year that she branched out and added a horse project. 

Harrop said that many people try to do more than one project per year, but that the more you have the more difficult it gets. 

“At the end of the year you’re going to hate yourself if you take on more than three projects,” Harrop said. 

Her fourth and fifth year she changed from a horse project to a market lamb, raising the lambs and taking them to market at the end of the year. 

The projects involve much more than training. Strict records of feeding, training regimens and whether you sell your animals at the end of the year all need to be taken down. 

Kids must also attend classes, the number of which depends on the animal. For Harrop, her dog, horse and lamb project required four additional classes on top of the monthly 4H meetings she led. 

She works hard to ensure that she is successful. With all her other activities and passions, it’s no surprise that Harrop would only take on a maximum of two animal projects at a time each year. 

When she started, Harrop wasn’t taking home any grand prizes, though her projects usually won ribbons. It wasn’t until 2014 and 2015, at age 14 and 15, respectively, that Harrop won. On top of receiving a Grand Champion award in Showmanship for her dog projects in both years, Harrop won the Round Robin after showing a cat, dog, chicken and rabbit, all of which she never interacted with prior to showing in the final round. 

“She had to learn how to show other people’s animals and know about those animals,” Lake said. “She went out and researched other people’s projects … that’s a big accomplishment.” 

With Harrop’s abilities, it was no surprise that she was selected in January to go to Norway for an international 4H exchange program for the month of July. 

She will be living in a town called Lillestrøm, a short distance northeast of Oslo, Norway’s capital. Harrop will learn about Norway through the lens of a host family, spending most of her time outside of the 4H environment focusing on culture. “Norway seems a lot like American culture,” she said. “I want to pick up on some colloquialisms, though.” 

But she will also spend one week at a Norwegian 4H camp, learning about the different ways Norwegians participate in a similar program as that in the United States.

Outside of participating in 4H activities, Harrop, like any high school student travelling abroad, is excited about the opportunity to photograph the places she will be going. “There will be good opportunities to take photos,” she said. “Like, I’ll be able to say ‘look at this cool place that I went.”

Aside from bragging rights about locations, she’s also stoked to dig her teeth into something new. “I’m excited about the cuisine because I love food. But I can’t cook to save my life, so it’s kind of funny.”

She has three weeks until she takes off, and, until she hands her boarding pass over she doesn’t plan on slacking one bit. “Until June 29, I’ll have my blinders on, getting ready for Norway,” she said. 

Her trip is costing her over $4,000, much of which she needs to raise. She received a scholarship and some assistance from her parents and was even able to apply $1,000 she made after selling her last year’s lamb project at market. Laughing, Harrop said “It was a 4H project that went into a 4H project.”

She still needs to raise $2,000 more and plans on putting together bake sales and a potluck in hopes that it will be enough to get the funds raised. 

Above and beyond her participation in 4H, Harrop is seeing her trip as an opportunity to reach out beyond her life in Polson. And though 4H has been a huge part of her life, she wants to see what life has in store for her. 

“I’m excited to get out and see the world because there is more than itty bitty Polson, Montana.”