MOUNT VERNON — The judging of 4-H food & nutrition and miscellaneous projects took place Wednesday at the Mount Vernon High School.

A small army of volunteer judges evaluated projects dealing with everything from pocket pets, fishing, quilting, rockets and health to sports, woodworking, living history, science and welding. One of the most popular 4-H projects this year was scrapbooking, with 91 youngsters entered in that category, Ally Helmick among them.

Christine Hohman was one of the scrapbooking judges. She speculated that one of the reasons for the boom in scrapbooking projects could be that more community members in general do scrapbooking, and companies carry so many more scrapbooking supplies than they used to. Hohman said she judges projects based on basic skills such as cropping pictures, archiving and making sure to use acid-free papers and glue. Highest scores went to those individuals who went above and beyond the basic requirements; those who could justify why they did what they did, for instance, in cropping a certain picture, and those who brought in extra and supplemental materials.