ATLANTIC, IOWA (story by Atlantic FFA reporter Maddy Anderson) —FFA members from across Southwest Iowa gathered at the Cass County Fairgrounds on Wednesday, September 17th, to build leadership and critical thinking through hands-on experiences at the first annual Southwest District Career Development Day.

Livestock Judging

Foodstand Help (650 meals in 1.5-hours)

Six hundred and fifty high school students from 36 FFA chapters throughout Southwest Iowa attended the event. Throughout the day, students had the opportunity to compete in seven different contest areas. These areas included livestock judging, horse judging, farm business management, agronomy, meats judging, and floriculture. The Atlantic FFA chapter competed in five of the seven contests.

Atlantic had two agronomy teams. The first team received 5th out of 12 teams. Individual scores for team 1 were: Grant Christensen, 220 points (5th overall), Jackstin Lucas, 145 points, Grayson Mulgaard, 130 points, and Cedric Victor, 175 points. The second team placed 4th out of 12 teams. Individual scores from team 2 were: Dayton Thomas, 130 points, Walter Freund, 230 points (4th overall), Monty Smith, 185 points, and Hade DeVore, 105 points.

The Farm Business Management team placed 5th out of 12 teams. Lily Johnson scored 24 points for 7th place overall. Claire Schroeder and Grant Petty both scored 19 points.

The Floriculture team placed 11th out of 45 teams. Rylan Martin scored 128 points, Paislee Klever scored 95 points, and Jena Jensen scored 93 points.

Natalie Smith competed in the Milk Quality Judging contest, and she earned 5th place overall.

Two teams from Atlantic participated in the livestock judging competition. Team one placed 30th overall. Individual scores from team 1 were: Chloe Sonntag, 40th place, Mirayle Stuart, 107th place, Aly Dreager, 142nd place, and Tenley Cappel, 136th place. Team 2 placed 27th overall. Individual scores from team 2 were: Jovie Richter, 75th place, Maddy Anderson, 80th place, Addison Masker, 96th place, and Dylen Dreager, 150th place.

This Career Development Event (CDE) was a great way for students to connect the information they are learning in the classroom to future career opportunities.

The Atlantic FFA chapter would like to extend a special thanks to the following: Cass County Fairboard, Cass County Grounds Committee, Jeff Anderson and Darrin Petty with Stine Seed for grilling lunch, Atlantic Bottling for donating 30 cases of water, Hy-Vee for donating the food for lunch, Rolling Hills Bank for the tables, David Clausen from Hy-Vee Floral and Ann Johnk from Farmhouse Flowers for being Floriculture judges, John Johnson from Hiland Milk and Hy-Vee for providing milk for the milk quality judging, TJ and Jess Barber and Zak and Emily Kennedy for the use of their horses, as well as Chris and Jodi Scholl for providing the goats, Jeff and Tarah Anderson for providing sheep and Euken Pigs for providing the pigs for the livestock judging competition.