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Three Hills-Beaver Creek High School FFA students were finalists in supervised agricultural experiences (SAE) at the state convention in St. Paul last week.
Carter Hartz, Cooper Gehrke and Samantha Moser were finalists in the fiber and/or oil production, environmental science and natural resources management, and agricultural communications, respectively.
“These finalists have earned proficiency awards in areas that relate to agriculture and developed skills they can apply to their future careers,” said Lavyne Rada, Minnesota FFA program manager.
“SAEs are part of the agricultural education programs and help them apply academic and career skills within areas of agriculture, food and natural resources pathways.”
An SAE can involve entrepreneurship, placement or internships in a business, research, exploration, service learning or school-based enterprises. In Minnesota there are 47 areas for which awards can be given, including both placement and entrepreneurship projects.
At the April 24-26 convention, 121 FFA’ers were recognized as SAE finalists.
State degree earners
Five H-BC FFA’ers received state degrees at the convention.
Danette Leenderts, Samantha Moser, Andrew Harris, Donavon Leenderts and Carter Hartz earned the organization’s top award that recognized the students’ exceptional amount of time invested into the SAE and local chapter.
Judging team results
H-BC qualified seven teams to compete at the state competition.
The teams and individual results are as follows:
•General livestock: 26th (silver) out of 65 teams. Samantha Moser was the team’s top individual, earning gold for placing 36th out of 229 FFA’ers. Lanae Elbers also earned a gold rating (76th place). Cody Moser was 125th (silver) and Sean Elbers was 174th (silver).
•Poultry evaluation: team finished 30th (silver) out of 45 teams. Individually, Olivia Bork placed 76th (silver), Kenadie Fick 77th (silver), Sylvia Fick (bronze) 137th and Layla Deelstra 155th out of 160 FFA’ers.
•Soils evaluation: H-BC finished 20th (silver) out of 43 teams. Andrew Harris placed 24th (gold) out of 150 participants, Max Scholten 70th (silver), Donavon Leenderts 92nd (silver) and Troy Durst 95th (silver).
•Best-informed greenhand competition: H-BC Team 1 placed 36th (silver), and Team 2 placed 53rd (bronze) out of 81 teams. Individually out of 206 participants, John Tiesler placed 91st (gold), Gus Jacobson 106th (gold), Gracie Fagerness 115th (silver), Michael Martinyuk 124th (silver), Emma Deelstra 159th (silver), Amber Wiersema 172nd (silver) and Bailey Spykerboer 190th (silver).
Tyrae Goodface was selected for the FFA band, playing tenor saxophone.