by Lily Harris
From left to right: Maggie Morris, Hannah Field, Selina Brown, Brittany Smith, Noah Jackson, Lily Harris, Hannah Lemel, and Cheyenne Rathbone
On November 24 Students on the FFA dairy judging team participated in the state competition in Raleigh. There were two teams, the senior team, Lily Harris, Hannah Lemel, Hannah Field, and Selina Brown and the Junior team, Noah Jackson, Maggie Morris, Brittany Smith, and Cheyenne Rathbone.
We are proud to announce that the senior team won the state competition and will compete in the national level in October 2016. Hannah Lemel placed second overall individually. Selina Brown placed 11, Hannah Field placed 14, and Lily Harris placed 43rd overall out of 264 competitors.
“I think that all of the hard work we put in as a team has paid off. We all attended as many practices as we could and were fully devoted to judging to our best ability on the competition day. It was extremely rewarding and I am so fortunate to be apart of such an awesome and talented team,” said sophomore Hannah Lemel.
During the competition, competitors judged six classes of cows. Two of the classes were reasons classes. That means you give a set of oral reasons to an official judge. They judge you on the accuracy of your placings, posture and appearance, and correct use of terminology.
In the next part of the competition there is a written test. The tests consists of questions having to do with dairy farms around the country and statistics about them.
The final part was a bull selection. You had to rank four bulls in order by a certain problem that a farmer had. The top bull was the most compatible for the herd.
The junior team placed fourth in the junior division in the state. Cheyenne Rathbone placed 11th, Noah Jackson placed 14th, Brittany Smith placed 33rd, and Maggie Morris placed 129th in the junior division out of 189 competitors.
The teams have worked hard for the past few months preparing for the competition. Special Thanks to Mr. Harris from the teams for coaching us.
“It is unbelievable to think that I am going to go back to Nationals and compete again. My first year competing at Nationals, in the Environmental and Natural Resources competition, we did really well, it was a great experience and I hope to be able to say the same when I leave the National Dairy Cattle Evaluation competition in 2016. I am excited to prepare for Nationals with my team!” said Lemel.