William B. Otwell was a 4-H pioneer. To encourage farmers to use new hybrid seeds and farm practices, Otwell began programs for youth. His corn contests attracted thousands of youth and gained national and world attention. Otwell's corn contests with their one-dollar premiums and farm equipment as prizes showed the value of incentives to encourage young people to compete and excel. This concept of technology transfer through youth was a foundation for 4-H clubs.

In Illinois, a room in the Macoupin County Extension Office is known as the Otwell Room, in honor of the impact he had on the national 4-H movement.

William B. Otwell was an Illinois farmer and president of the National Farm Institute. He noticed the work of O. J. Kern, a rural Illinois school superintendent, who was working with the Agricultural Experiment Station to bring new methods and seed varieties to farmers. Otwell saw that few farmers seemed interested in attending meetings, so he decided to concentrate on youth. When Otwell offered a $1 premium for the best yield of corn produced from Midwestern seed that he collected, more than 500 boys entered the contest. By 1901 it attracted 1,500 boys. Equipment manufacturers offered premiums of plows, cultivators and fanning mills to winners. By 1904 the contest grew to 50,000 youth. The event was featured at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, where samples from the best 1,250 contestants and 600 photographs of young corn growers were on exhibit. Nationwide, newspapers carried stories of the pyramid of corn from Illinois. The next year, Otwell invited youth from across the country to a national corn growing roundup. Some government officials watched as young men and women from eight states paraded past the reviewing stand. 4-H was a merger of Otwell's concept with that of organizing rural youth into clubs and groups.