East Clinton’s Ag and Urban Soil Judging teams joined the almost 90 teams in attendance Saturday at the annual FFA state competition.
Over the course of the last few weeks, students have learned to recognize problems with soil, evaluate slope, and find the best management practices that correlate with the soil-forming factors they find.
Our members had previously competed in the district competition, where the Ag team placed second with Teddy Murphy leading the team, placing second individually.
The Urban Judging team also did amazing in the district competition with the team placing third in the district, and Aiden Walker leading the team with a first place score individually.
Not only did our high schoolers do exceptionally well at the district level, but so did our new middle school Ag and Urban Soil Judging teams, which both placed first in their respective contests.
The middle school Ag team included students Kendall Debold, Sahara Tate, and Talynn Spurlock, and the middle school Urban team included Carson Carey, Wade Smith, Ben Cline, and Brooklyn Vickers.
The high school teams consisting of Aiden Walker, Hayden Beiting, Aaron Rolfe, Jacob George, Teddy Murphy, Dylan Arnold, Sydney Beiting, and Anna Lopez attended the state competition, and all eight spent their Saturday evaluating the soil pits that were dug as well as being tested on their general knowledge.
The Ag Soils team placed third in the state, and they will be attending a contest in Oklahoma later in the school year to compete at Nationals. The Urban Soils team also placed well and finished 16th overall.
Our chapter would like to thank Family Farm and Home from Washington Court House for providing us with buckets to use for carrying our supplies, as well as everyone who dug soil pits and allowed us to judge them throughout these past few weeks.
Special thanks to Kevin Bean, the Arnolds, Kale Boeckmann and Boeckmann Farms, the Ellis family, the Bond Family, John Rolfe, and the Woodruff and George families for allowing us to dig soil pits.
