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| Kane Wellnitz, 3rd in Public Speaking |
Chadron FFA wrapped up its 2015 competition schedule by competing in the 2015 Nebraska State FFA Convention last week in Lincoln Nebraska. During the school year, students had to qualify at a district level, in order to compete at state. Chadron had 19 of its 30 FFA members qualify for the state event consisting of over 3,500 competitors. The competition was held at various venues including the new Pinnacle Bank Arena, UNL East campus and the Holiday Inn. Chadron qualified competitors in Senior Public Speaking, Meats Evaluation, Livestock Evaluation, Natural Resources, Agriscience and Agronomy.
Chadron’s highest placing was a 3rd place by junior Kane Wellnitz in Senior Public Speaking. Kane’s eight minute speech covered the issue’s of an aging production agriculture population, loss of ag land to development and how to encourage young people into production agriculture. Kane was last years winner and Chadron FFA’s first ever State Champion winning the Junior Public Speaking contest.
The Livestock Evaluation team comprising of Kane Wellnitz, Lanie Reisen, Beau Jersild, Cody Madsen, Drew Jersild and Kylee Garrett placed 12th out of 78 teams earning the team a blue ribbon. The team demonstrated their knowledge of horses, cattle, dairy, sheep, chickens and swine through written tests and evaluating live animals and identifying equipment associated with each species.
The Meats Evaluation team comprised of Joe Cattin(red), Jerhett Cattin (blue), Sean O’Brien (blue), and Matt Kerner (blue), placed 22nd out of 98 teams earning a blue ribbon. The team completion included written tests, carcass evaluation and meat cuts identification of beef, pork and lamb.
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| The Livestock Evaluation Team |
Agronomy is a contest that is very broad in its scope including such areas as entomology, crop and weed seed identification, applied mathematical agricultural calculations, equipment identification to name a few of the areas included in the contest. Chadron’s state FFA contestants were new to this contest and competed well but did not place. Team members were Sylissa Jennings, Clay Madsen, Miakayla Koerber and Renee Redfern.
Agriscience is a contest limited to freshman. Students first wrote a career paper covering the agricultural career of their choosing describing in detail the characteristics, education, salary ranges and future outlook for their chosen career.
While in Lincoln, competitors were given an individual written test followed by a lab experiment in which the students had to follow proper lab safety and protocols used in a laboratory. This year’s topic focused on food nutrition (proteins, carbohydrates, and fats). Chadron’s FFA team comprised of Hunter Hawk, Miakayla Koerber, Clayton Vahrenkamp and Renee Redfern earned a white ribbon for their efforts. In addition to the team ribbon, Hunter and Mikayla individually earned a white ribbon.
The Natural Resource team consisting of Clay Madsen, Toni Doescher, Murphy Churchill and Brooke Roes earned a white ribbon. Clay Madsen tied for fourth place earning a purple individual ribbon in the event with just .05% of a point out of first place. This same team will compete in a similar state competition (Envirothon) in which they qualified for sponsored by the Nebraska Natural Resource district later this month.
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| The Agriscience Team |
