FFA chapters place at state

KENNEWICK – Future Farmers of America members from Whitman County schools brought home multiple first-place awards May 14 from the state FFA Convention and Expo.

From Colfax, the Ag Sales team of J.P. Wigen, Harley Hennigar, Nathan de Avila and Marchele McNeilly are advancing to nationals in Indianapolis, Ind., at the end of October after winning that competition.

From Colton, first-place awards were won by Elysia Rogerson in Extemporaneous Speech and Agricultural Social Science, Maggie Meyer in Agriscience Environmental Services/ Natural Resource, Lola Baerlocher in Agriscience Food Products and Processing Systems (Jr/Sr), Grace DeMeerleer in Agriscience Food Products and Processing Systems (Fr/So), 1st, Rachel Becker in Agriscience Power, Structural and Technical Systems, Sidni Whitcomb in Agriscience Plant Systems.

Ag Sales Team

"This is the third team in the last three national conventions from Colfax that has had the opportunity to do that, so that's exciting," Colfax FFA adviser Michael Heitstuman said.

"We were tasked with selling purina supplements," said de Avila.

Heitstuman explained the purina products are designed for the animals to give them more weight, muscling, and keep weight off of them for a fair livestock show.

Students were required to do team excercises, and practice sales meetings.

"For our team activity, we would get a prompt, and we would look at our prompts and then as a team we would act like it was if we were a company and we went to a business meeting.."said McNeilly

Working in sales taught them valuable life skills "Going through sales has taught me important life skills that can be used in a career just in life that you learn with people and with working on a team to get to a common goal." Hennigar said.

The students worked hard to practice and prepare for the competition, "For one or two hours a couple of week nights we'd come in after baseball or softball practice or track and work on sales for a couple hours." Wigens said.

Colton's Agricultural Sales Team of Mary Pluid, Lola Baerlocher, Kaydee Heitstuman and Kyndra Strout finished eighth.

Colfax awards

There were also several other winning teams from Colfax.

State Soils third-place team: Cora Shindler, Derek Repp, JP Wigen, McCoy Nelson and De Avila.

Soils fourth-place: Drew VanTine, Marchele McNeilly, Repp, Karly Wigen and Wyatt McGraw.

State Potato Evaluation third-place team: De Avila, Cora Shindler, Marchele McNeilly, Cadence Monson and Gabby Rabiaotti.

Fifth-place Potato Evaluation: Derek Repp, Harley Hennigar, Darin Repp, Karly Wigen and Abby Stilson.

State Agronomy seventh-place: Avila , Leilani Millar, Tanner Senter, Sidney Appel and Shindler.

State Farm Business Management fifth-place: Monson, Senter, Tess Lewis, Wigen and VanTine.

State First Year Greenhand sixth-place: McNeilly, Wigen and Repp.

State Ag Communications third-place: Derek Repp, Shindler, Millar and Avila.

Monson was a National Qualifier in Forage Crop Production and won state proficiency.

Shindler won the state Citizenship Award.

High Individual winners were Wigen with second high individual, Hennigar fifth, Repp sixth, Shindler and Avila ninth.

Colton awards

Not to be outdone, Rogerson will be headed to the National FFA Convention in two events - Extemporaneous Speech and Agricultural Social Science.

Rogerson was instructed to draw three topics, select one, and she was given 30 minutes to prepare a 4-6 minute speech and answer 5 minutes of questions from a panel of judges.

The Extemporaneous Public Speaking Leadership Development event allows students to showcase their agricultural knowledge and ability to think on their feet by giving a speech and answering questions with limited prep time.

Along with Rogerson's win, the Wildcats also brought home several other state awards, including seven first-place titles, four seconds and a third-place.

In addition to the aforementioned awards, Baerlocher was second in Prepared Public Speaking and DeMeerleer second in Creed Speaking. Becker was eighth in Agricultural Sales Individual.

Mary Pluid took second and third, respectively, in Agriscience Food Products and Processing Systems (Jr/Sr) and Employment Skills.

Grant Wolf and Jaxon Moehrle were second in Agriscience Power, Structural and Technical Systems .

Holly Heistuman was fourth in Creed Speaking and Clair Moehrle eighth in Extemporaneous Public Speaking.