TORRINGTON – A quartet of current and former Torrington FFA students recently represented the state of Wyoming at the National FFA Convention in Indianapolis, Ind.
Paige Miller, Clay Hiser, Makenna Greenwald and Quentin Meyer participated in the Livestock Evaluation Career Development event, part of the 90th annual National Convention. Miller and Meyer are now juniors at Torrington High School and Greenwald and Hiser are freshman in college.
“Being part of this team has shown me the value of hard work and dedication,” Meyer said. “We started preparing in July for our competition in October.
“Often times it was hours at a time,” he said. “However, the amount of time we took taking tests, giving reasons, and preparing for nationals all paid off when we heard our names called as Gold Emblem Individuals and the fourth High Team Overall.”
The livestock CDE is comprised of eight selection classes, each judged independently, with four sets of oral reasons given on selected classes. Additionally, teams were scored on a questions and assessment class, plus three keep/cull classes.
In a keep/cull class, competitors choose four animals to be replacements in a production herd while the other four are sold or culled. There was also a written exam that consisted of common questions surrounding the livestock industry.
Finally, there was a genetics situation, where teams had to select new herd sires that best fit four different beef herds. In the marketing scenario, cattle were traded via a video market.
“During this we had to calculate shrink and slide, deposits, and transportation cost,” Meyer said. “As well, we had to assure the video lots fit the buyer’s needs.
“After it was all said and done, we came home not only being the fourth high team overall, but we had several other highlights,” including High team in Team Activity, second High Team in Test, second High Team in Beef Cattle.
In addition to the team accolades, Greenwald was recognized as second High Individual in Beef Cattle and third High Individual in Test. Miller earned ninth-place High Individual Overall and $450 in scholarship from the National FFA Organization.
“Being part of this competition has made me hungry for a national title, so we are already making plans for his coming spring,” Meyer said. “Even though we did not achieve our ultimate goal, we were still extremely pleased with the results.”
