The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

For more than a century, boys and girls with an abiding curiosity about harvesting corn and raising cattle found refuge in their local 4-H Club, which developed deep roots in America's farming communities that make up the fruited plains between the country's coastal population centers.

But a new effort, slated to begin this month, is seeking to broaden the group's traditional scope beyond agriculture, aiming to push it into the 21st century by forging more of a connection with the nation's urban youth. The local organizations want to move from the countryside into the cities.

"We just know...