The South O’ Brien FFA Chapter team of Bensen Rohwer, Brett Evans, Ian Oliver and Ethan Schwarz competed in the State Poultry Evaluation contest on the campus of Iowa State University at the State FFA Leadership Conference in Ames, Iowa.
The FFA Poultry Evaluation Evaluation Career Development Event provides an opportunity for FFA members to display their agricultural knowledge and skills in the area of Poultry Evaluation. Activities included: placing classes of live poultry; placing and grading classes of ready to cook poultry; grading classes of egg interiors and exteriors; identifying and grading further processed poultry products, and a poultry production examination.
There were 506 members participating from 135 chapters. South O’Brien placed 14th overall with a Gold rating and 9th in the Further Processed Poultry class.
Contestant Brett Evans stated, “ The contest was fun and we learned new things along the way. This year was more of a learning experience for us because we had a new team.”
South O’Brien also had a team compete in the State Farm Business Management contest. FFA teams from 101 chapters participated in this year’s Career Development Event designed to provide the student an opportunity to display their agricultural knowledge and skills in the area of farm management. The 375 individuals who participated in the event each completed an objective test which had three sections: economic principles, records and analysis, and risk management. All team members worked together to solve a problem related to break even analysis.
Contestant Ben Woodall stated, “ The contest had one team portion with five questions, and a 70 question individual test talking about profits and losses, deciding whether or not a business is going to be successful.”
The South O’Brien team of Woodall, Justice Frerk, Josh Gnade, and Claire Wagner placed 17th with a Gold rating, this is the chapter’s first Gold rating and the highest placing to date for a South O’Brien team.