(By Craig Alan Becker, Atlantic FFA Reporter) —  On Thursday October 2, 2019, Atlantic FFA members attended numerous fall contests at Northwest Missouri State University. This year, the chapter had five members compete in the Livestock Evaluation contest, placing 33rd out of 60 teams. In this contest, members had the opportunity to display their agricultural knowledge of various livestock breeds. Those who competed had to place breeding and market classes of beef, swine, and sheep, while also doing three classes of oral reasons. Individually, Malena Woodward placed 40th, Wyatt Redinbaugh placed 94th, Sofia Mendez placed 141st, Kaitlin Jensen placed 182nd, and Kate Oettchen placed 200th out of the 223 contestants from Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri. Sofia Mendez said, “I like judging livestock but I didn’t like giving reasons”. Kate Oettechen said “I thought it was really fun. That was a cool experience.”

Taylor MeCreedy and Hannah Carlson competed in the Horse Evaluation contest. The event gave students the opportunity to learn agricultural knowledge and skills in the area of equine science. Competing FFA members evaluated halter and performance equine classes. Taylor placed 5th and Hannah 40th placed out of 90 contestants.

Northwest Soils Team: Kate Oettchen, Sofia Mendez, Malena Woodward, Wyatt Redinbaugh, Kaitlin Jensen

Northwest Horse Team: Taylor McCreedy and Hannah Carlson

Northwest Derby Greenhand test: Alyssa Derby

Northwest Dairy Cattle Team: Jackson McLaren, Dylan Comes, Daniel Freund, Logan Eilts

Northwest Ag Business team (All photos in this series were submitted by the Atlantic FFA)

In the Dairy Cattle Evaluation contest, the chapter placed 1st out of the Iowa teams and 8th overall. The purpose of the District Dairy Cattle CDE is to enable students to develop skills in dairy animal selection and dairy herd management. They evaluated and ranked dairy animals based on visual factors of selection. Daniel Freund placed 11th, Dylan Comes placed 24th, Jackson McLaren placed 40th and Logan Eilts placed 70th out of 100 individuals. Jackson Mclaren said, “I thought it was fun. My favorite part was just trying new things”.

At the Farm Business contest the Atlantic team of Tate Den Beste, Drey Newell, Adriana Mendez, and Gunner Kirchoff placed 1st out of the Iowa teams and 5th overall. Individually Drey was 15th, Tate placed 17th, Gunner placed 18th, and Adriana placed 44th. The contest is designed to stimulate instruction of economic and agricultural business management principles in the secondary agriculture curriculum. These principles include the following: the ability to apply the economic principles and concepts listed in analyzing the farm business and making farm business management decisions, the ability to analyze and select the most appropriate type of farm business organization for a given farm situation, the ability to develop the ability to use records and manage resources for optimum returns to resources.

In the FFA Knowledge test, Atlantic member Alyssa Derby placed 6th out of 132 individuals. The contest consisted of a 100 question written examination covering general FFA knowledge. After the contest, Atlantic FFA Advisor Eric Miller commented, “I was very happy with the results. Each team placed in the top 3 for the Iowa teams. Most of our students use this contest as a way to see if they will be interested in trying this at the State Level for the Iowa FFA Association. ”