NEPHI— All three Sanpete County chapters of Future Farmers of America (FFA) brought home honors at the Central Utah Judging Invitational on Wednesday, Sept. 22 at the Juab County Fairgrounds in Nephi.
Twenty chapters from Utah competed in eight different categories with over 250 students participating.
Gunnison Valley FFA
The milk quality team placed first overall with Bob Burrell taking the top individual place. Aubrey Peterson came in second; Aiden Bown placed seventh and Brittyn Jones rounded out the team in 10th.
Judging the horse category gave Gunnison a fifth-place team finish. Team members were MaKenzee Woodruff, Chelsey Lyons, Isabel Goff and Houston McDonald.
Ben Sorensen placed second in Agronomy, only two points behind the first-place winner from Delta.
Landon Sorensen placed fourth individually in the Vet Science contest, with Taylor Bartholomew placing fifth.
Manti FFA
Manti had 29 students participate in the competition. Ryke Faatz placed 5th individually in the Ag Mechanics competition. The livestock judging competition had three students place in the top 20 out of 102 competitors.
Jessica Larsen was Manti’s top livestock judge competitor with a 13th place finish out of 102 competitors. This was Jessica’s first judging competition and her advisor said he is very excited for her future as she is only a freshman.
Kate Flitton also placed top 20 out of 125 competitors in the horse evaluations; she was 13th overall. This was only the second competition Kate has ever participated in, and she is a sophomore at Manti High School.
North Sanpete FFA
The North Sanpete chapter had 20 students in the competition. Students competed in Ag Mechanics, Horse Evaluation, Livestock Evaluation, Forestry and Floriculture.
The Forestry Team placed the highest in the chapter with a second place overall. Team members were Riley King, Karson Curtis and Owen Fowkes. King, a freshman and newcomer to the FFA program, was the highest individual in the forestry contest.
Other team results were horse evaluation, 3rd place, and floriculture and ag mechanics, both 4th place.
“I just want to say that I am really proud of all my students,” said Jens Andreasen, FFA advisor “These kids have never come in last place at a contest so far in my career at North Sanpete. This year is going to be extremely productive and a great learning experience for me and my students.”
Over the next couple weeks, the students will be working hard in the classroom and after school to prepare and improve their scores from this competition at the Snow College event on Oct. 12.
