An SDSU graduate was recently the victim of an email hoax.

Kelly Stieben, a music merchandising graduate from Brandon, advertised her apartment for rent on the SDSU off-campus housing Web site, but the person she was in contact with never sent money and never showed up.

Stieben was moving out and her two roommates needed a third girl to rent from December until May. Joan Mack was the first to contact Stieben, claiming she was a graduate student transferring to SDSU from the United Kingdom needing a place to stay. Stieben asked for a payment to reserve the room, but no money came in the mail.

The student’s father started sending emails to Stieben, telling her that his daughter was very precious and he wanted her to be taken care of when she arrived at SDSU. Stieben wrote to both the student and her father asking for updates of when she was arriving and when the payment was coming, but still no money.

A third person contacted Stieben, this one claiming to be from Manchester, UK, and coming to research at SDSU. Miriam asked for pictures of the apartment and an application form to fill out.

A co-worker of Stieben’s traced the IP address of Joan’s email address to West Nigeria. Her address as well as the father’s ended in “01″ and “001″ which, according to Stieben’s co-worker, is a sign of a possible hoax email account.

Stieben stopped responding to the emails and tagged their addresses as spam. “Unfortunately, since this has taken up so much time, no one else has wanted to rent the apartment,” said Stieben. She then had to pay for an apartment she was not living in.

“If someone is trying to rent from you and you think it’s a hoax, first contact administration and make sure that student really is coming to SDSU,” says Stieben.

Pat Lyons, legal aid attorney for the Students’ Association, said he has not heard of any other hoaxes. However, students should still be aware of who they are sharing information with.

Most people who are not familiar with 4-H think of it as something agricultural, but 4-H is much more than that.

It started out with a base in agriculture, but it has grown into a club for youth to make projects in areas ranging from electronics to sewing to building citizenship and leadership skills, and also to learning many life-long lessons.

4-H is a community group present in most communities in South Dakota and throughout the Midwest, whether it is represented by a club, rodeo, after-school program or even the state fair. SDSU student Amanda Tuchscherer, a junior ag education and speech studies major who has spent nine years working with 4-H, and Christine Kayl, a family and consumer sciences graduate student, both play leadership roles in Brookings and Volga 4-H by working for the Brookings County Extension Office planning and running 4-H after-school programs.

Kayl and Tuchscherer work together to teach children good habits such as exercise and health nutrition.

“Hopefully, if you reach children at a young age, healthy habits will seem to be a regular part of life and not a chore or punishment,” says Kayl.

It is important that kids are excited about nutrition and have fun with the various activities. The programs, both in Brookings and Volga, only last one hour, and within that time frame, the children do two different activities. During the first part of the program, Tuchscherer leads half of the group in an exercise activity while Kayl teaches the other half of the group about nutrition and the food pyramid. After 30 minutes, the groups switch activities and at the end of the program, the kids get to make their own fun, healthy snack.

Working with youth and their ambitions has been a rewarding experience for both students, and the 4-H after-school program has helped them use their education in a real-life setting.

“Showing the kids that you care about them and the stories they have to tell you is an important thing I’ve learned as an education major, and I love getting to practice this with the kids every time we do 4-H Afterschool,” says Tuchscherer.

Marilyn Rasmussen, Ann Michelle Daniels, Kim Wilson-Sweebe, and Rose Stee also share responsibility for the 4-H Afterschool program and its success by hiring students like Tuchscherer and Kayl and giving them the opportunity to work in this rewarding program.