Members from the South O’ Brien FFA chapter competed in the State FFA Meats Career Development Event at Iowa State University on Saturday, August 24th.
The FFA Meats Evaluation Career Development Event provides an opportunity for FFA members to display their agricultural knowledge and skills in the area of Meat Evaluation. Activities included: placing carcass classes of beef, pork, and lamb; placing classes of wholesale and retail meat cuts; quality and yield grading beef carcasses; identifying retail meat cuts, and a problem solving activity.
South O’Brien brought home the Reserve Champion Team honors and a Gold rating out of 19 chapters. The team was also the 1st Place Retail ID team, 2nd in Carcass Placing and Problem Solving, 4th in Quality & Yield Grading, and 10th in Wholesale/Retail Placing.
“I’m proud of the work the team put in again this summer and they strived to improve each day of practice.” commented South O’Brien FFA Advisor Eric Kumm. “We knew going in that it was going to be a challenge with Muscatine bringing back their third place team from last year, and Sioux Center always having teams prepared extremely well. But our team was excited for second place since that qualifies them for the contest in Colorado.”
South O’Brien FFA team members were Austin Negus placing 3rd, Ethan Schwarz 4th overall and first in Retail ID with a perfect score, Will Stout 7th, and John Puhrmann. 67 individuals competed in the contest this year.
Austin Negus stated, “The contest was very well run by the Iowa State meats team. I thought the most difficult part of the contest was the retail ID section. I will work on the part of the contest for the next contest in Colorado.” The team qualified for the Western National contest which will be held at Colorado State University in Ft. Collins, CO in January.