‘She makes sure things get done’
A herd of 25 LaMancha dairy goats awaits Heather Arts when she gets home from Timberlake Jr./Sr. High School. The reward for feeding and milking her four-footed friends is a fuzzy head that rests on her shoulder or a nose that nuzzles her hair.
Besides homework and the responsibilities of running a herd, the 18-year-old senior mentors other youngsters on the art of goat-keeping. She’s volunteered as a 4-H leader for two years and feels the time spent is a valuable investment.
“Just giving my knowledge to the kids is a way of influencing them to be better people,” she said. “It teaches them about responsibility; it teaches them how to care about somebody.”
It’s a lesson Arts learned through a variety of community service activities. When you give affection and care to others, you get it back, she said. With her goats, it’s a lick on the face, and with other projects it may just be the satisfaction of a job well done.
She’s hung sheet rock for Habitat for Humanity and helped round up funds to send a Make-A-Wish Foundation child to Disney World. She mentors freshmen and shares lunchtime with special-needs students so they’ll feel more comfortable at school. She chips in cleaning Timberlake’s hallways and saves pop can tabs for the Ronald McDonald House. The food drives and the blood drives all leave her feeling that she’s made a good example and others might follow.
“Go out and make a difference,” she said is her motto. “Do one good thing.”
Kim Hauck has been Arts’ math teacher for the past two years and accompanies students on community service activities in her role as National Honor Society adviser. The students watch Spirit Lake children so their parents can attend Parent Teacher Organization meetings and offer helping hands in a variety of projects.
“I see Heather as a student who will go out of her way to be a part of a group that will help other people,” Hauck said. “In anything she does, I see her as a leader. She makes sure things get done and are organized.”
Arts’ work with goats led her to a first runner-up title for a national competition. The American Dairy Goat Association named her its alternate youth representative last year. It was an unpaid honor with the task of making presentations to encourage youngsters to learn about the animals. She set up and staffeddisplays from Salem, Ore., to Bonners Ferry and Spokane.
She also traveled as far as Des Moines, Iowa, for competitions showing goats that she’s bred for favorable traits. Often by her side is her prized goat, Maddie, a black LaMancha that wears a white stripe like a band of pearls around her neck.
“I love her to death. She has the milking capacity of two goats,” Arts said. “She’s one ribbon away from being a permanent champ, which is the highest you can get in ADGA.”
She’s a 4-H leader for a ceramics club as well as for goats. Monthly meetings, fund-raisers and endless paperwork are responsibilities usually taken on by older adults in the 4-H circle. But Arts learned early in life that there is joy in helping others.
At age 6, she accompanied her great-grandmother, who volunteered time at the Rathdrum Senior Center. At age 14, she decided to give something in return. She signed on as a volunteer waitress and has logged more than 400 hours serving Sunday meals at the center.
“I always leave there with a positive attitude,” she said. “For this extra effort I get recognition back.”
Arts’ generosity was put to the test four years ago. Her great-grandfather was 90, living in California and unable to drive. He said he needed someone to care for him. Arts’ grandmother, Sonia Thyssen, a nurse, took him home to North Idaho.
Thyssen managed for a while on her own, but eventually needed help while she went to work on the night shift. Arts moved in and made sure her great-grandfather had his dinner and his bath. With help from her younger sister and older brother, the family was able to honor the veteran’s request to stay out of a nursing home.
Arts relishes the time she spent listening to stories from her older relative. She discovered that he was a pilot and taught others how to fly in World War II.
In the end, her great-grandfather spent nights talking to himself and hallucinating. Arts found that she was patient and could handle the stress. She kept a 3.7 grade-point average and plans to follow her family’s footsteps in the medical field after high school. Her mother, Lisa, is a nurse and father, Geert, is a certified nurse assistant.
When Arts’ great-grandfather was dying, she kept vigil by his bedside with her family. She knew he was appreciative of them being near. The experience taught her another lesson about caring for another.
“It doesn’t take a lot,” she said. “Just being there to put a smile on somebody’s face is enough.”