Meeker FFA competes in contest

MEEKER — On May 3, the Meeker FFA Chapter traveled to Fort Collins to the state FFA Career Development Events contest.
Twenty-six members traveled to compete in nine different events including: livestock judging, meat evaluation, horse judging, dairy judging, floriculture, farm business management, agricultural sales, agricultural mechanics and job interview.
These events help members prepare for the future and are conducted in order to put to use the skills learned in agricultural education and to create interest and provide incentive and recognition to members in the different careers of agriculture.
• The floriculture team received a gold award, placing second out of 40 teams. Each member of the team received an individual gold award as Brenda Rowles placed second, Jenifer Bain placed fifth and Ashley Purkey placed sixth out of 139 participants.
• The horse judging team consisting of Krystal Otwell, Aaron Pena and Tiffany Neimetz placed 24th as a team, while Tiffany received a silver award, placing 30th out of 132 individuals.
• The meat evaluation team also placed 24th. J.C. Chintala, Brett Carroll, Aaron Webster and Krysten Atchley were all members of this team.
The livestock judging team received a gold award, placing third out of 46 teams. Trey Morris received an individual silver award, placing 28th, while both Stacey Fitzgibbons and Morgan Neilson received gold awards, placing 10th and fourth out of 154 participants, respectively.
• Farm business placed 17th out of 36 teams. Denee Chintala received a silver award, placing 23rd out of 114 participants. Chanler May and Kelsie Gross also rounded out the team, but did not place.
• The dairy judging team consisted of Charlie Scherbarth, Tina Bain and Natalie Carroll and placed 20th overall.
• The Agriculture Sales team consisting of Collin Cochran, Marissa Pallach and Sydney Boes placed 11th overall; Collin Cochran received a Bronze award, placing 24th out of 50 participants.
n Timbre Shriver participated in Job Interview and received a silver award, placing fourth out of 18.
• Ethan Overton was the single Agricultural Mechanics team member; placing well out of 104 participants.
This year was the largest FFA Career Development Events Contest in Colorado’s history as 1238 FFA members competed on 365 different teams in 15 different competitions on the Colorado State University Campus. FFA makes a positive difference in the lives of students by developing their potential for premier leadership, personal growth and career success through agriculture education. There are 4906 FFA members statewide across the state of Colorado for the 2008-2009 year; marking a new high enrollment in Colorado Agriculture Education and FFA.