Fessenden-Bowdon FFA wins state Agronomy Judging Event

Thirteen members of the Fessenden-Bowdon FFA Chapter recently traveled to the ND State Fair Center in Minot to participate in the Winter CDE Championships for Agronomy, Livestock and Ag Sales Career Development Events on March 21. The teams were coached by Advisor Lane Moellenkamp and Student Teacher Samuel Poland.

Five members of the Fessenden-Bowdon FFA Chapter recently participated in the State FFA Agronomy Career Development Event. The five members performed very well as the top three individuals were all from Fessenden-Bowdon. Senior Regan Jones finished as the high individual in the event and also had a perfect score of 1100, believed to be the first since the event changed from crops judging to agronomy. Joshua Crowder finished with his best performance scoring a 1083 and placing second while Delaney Erfle completed the sweep with her best score of 1070 and third place overall. Addy Neumiller earned a gold and finished 15th while Gavin Mason also earned gold finishing in 19th. Having the top three members boded well for the chapter in the team competition as they finished first and earned the right to represent North Dakota at the National FFA Agronomy Event in October in Indianapolis, Indiana. The team score of 3333 was enough for the chapter members to claim the top spot over the other 58 competing chapters. There were a total of 214 individual judges in the agronomy event. The state Agronomy event has students identify crop and weed seeds and plants in North Dakota as well as Insects, Agronomic Disorders, Machinery and Equipment. Grain grading, soil survey interpretation and seed selection. The team problem consists of calculating planting rate, fertilizer calculations and interpreting the North Dakota Weed Control Guide.

Fessenden-Bowdon was also represented in the state livestock judging event. This year the team had a mix of experience with Donavin and Ryan and they were joined by first year judges Hanna and Chloe. The team finished in 29th place out of 59 competing schools. 7th grader Hanna Widicker led the team at state with a bronze award finishing 102nd out of 203 participants. Other members competing and all earning bronze awards were Donavin Bartz, Ryan Snively and Chloe Bartz. In the livestock evaluation CDE, each participant judges two sets of beef and swine as well as a class of ewe lambs and market goats. Members must present a set of oral reasons on beef, sheep and swine as well as interpret a keep/cull class and take a beef knowledge exam.

The Agriculture Sales team was led again this year by senior Nicole Neumiller earned a gold award and finished 7th overall out of 210 participants. Garin Opdahl also earned a gold award while Logan Grover was silver and Kendra Hoff earned bronze. The Agriculture Sales event has members preparing a product summary sheet on an ag product and presenting a sales presentation to judges for evaluation. The members must also take a sales knowledge exam and the agriculture sales team must use information about a Horticulture product to research and present a sales marketing approach to potential retail or wholesale dealers.

(Editor's Note: In the print edition, the cutlines for the pictures were mistakenly labeled, "right to left," instead of the more commonly-used "left to right." Also, Logan Grover's last name was misspelled under the Ag Sales picture. The Independent regrets the errors.)