Texas FFA students test judgment skills at Waco contest
By Kay Wilson Tribune-Herald staff writer
Agriculture Invitational's top area finishers
Following is a list of top area finishers and their categories from the third annual McLennan Community College Agriculture Invitational on Wednesday. Events were held at the Heart O’ Texas Fair Complex, MCC’s Highlander Ranch and Waco Mammoth Site.
Dairy foods: Hillsboro’s team of Morgan Whitworth, Alan Torres and Earnest Rogers placed seventh.
Livestock: Riesel’s Brant Embry was a winner in the individual division.
Meats: Riesel’s team of Courtney McDonald, Melissa Downs, Aaron Towns, Kyle Bennett and Courtney Masaich placed third; and Lorena’s squad of Ez Vonasek, Mical Stephenson, Jeff Boynton, Shane Hennig and Casey Maultsby was sixth. Individual finishers were Troy’s Devin Wurster and Courtney McDonald, eighth and ninth, respectively.
Nursery/landscape: Robinson’s squad of Spencer Gardner, Kat Houle, Kels Keyes and Traci Arndt finished ninth.
Range: Bosqueville’s team of Logan Putnam, Dalton Reid, Brandon Garrett and Abby Prause was third; and Teague’s team of Amanda Massey, Amber Allee and Jeffrey Gonzalez placed seventh. Individual finishers were Amanda Massey of Teague, eighth; and Bosqueville’s Logan Putnam and Dalton Reid, ninth and 10th, respectively.
Wildlife: Axtell’s team of Keith Lindsay, Ashley Radde, Dakota Dees and Brady Skinner took fifth; and Teague’s squad of Charlie Hull, Kirt Murphy, Jake Pickens and Cory Reid was 10th.
The first thing one could notice at the Heart O’ Texas Fair Complex on Wednesday was that the 50 or so school buses and vans in the parking lot were from as far away as Texarkana and Laredo and as near as Pflugerville and Plano.
The occasion was the third annual McLennan Community College Agriculture Invitational, which attracted nearly 3,200 high school Future Farmers of America students.
They came to test their skills at farm- and ranch-related judging events.
The contests took place across the city. At the complex was judging for horse, floriculture, nursery-landscaping, poultry and dairy products.
Lorena's Austin Cook, 16, looks over a market goat at the McLennan Community College Agriculture Invitational on Wednesday.
Rod Aydelotte/Waco Tribune-Herald
Students took written tests and made observations about the quality and kinds of cheese and milk, chickens, eggs and horses.
Marie Gowan of Plano, competing in the dairy food division, had a complaint.
“There wasn’t enough places to spit out the cheese between tastings,” she said.
Taylor Cooper of Harmony agreed.
“I hate cheese,” he said. “I would have gotten sick if I had swallowed it.”
But why, then, was he judging cheese?
“I’m good at it,” he said.
MCC agriculture instructor Barry Jones quickly fixed the problem for the other tasters.
An acre at the Waco Mammoth Site, meanwhile, was roped off for range and wildlife judging.
In the wildlife division, students had to identify deer, birds and other wildlife from the remains of skin and bones.
They also had know which animals would be native to the area, based on the environment’s food sources and habitat.
MCC’s Highlander Ranch played host to students vying in meat, land and livestock judging.
Dominic Altmyer of Friendswood, competing in livestock judging for the second year, called the contest at MCC a challenge and a good warm-up for state competition at Tarleton State University a day later.
Seth Redding of Waco, in his first year of competition, also in livestock judging, said he had transferred from Waco High School to Midway High School so he could be in the FFA and raise pigs.
MCC agriculture instructor Barry Jones, who began the invitational in 2007, said he wants the event to become the best in the state.
“MCC is well on its way to that both in quality of the event superintendants and student attendance,” he said.
Students examine and judge various plants during the third annual McLennan Community College Agriculture Invitational on Wednesday.
Rod Aydelotte/Waco Tribune-Herald
Superintendents are experts in their fields who monitor the events. Two of the superintendants, from Lorena and Riesel, have each worked with Jones for more than 10 years, going back to his years at Weatherford State.
Judges for the contests included instructors from Texas State Technical College in Waco and Texas A&M University.
Tom Maynard, executive director of the Texas FFA Association, said that many colleges in Texas hold agricultural invitationals.
“The scale of what is done at these competitions is too much for most local high schools to provide,’’ he said, “and colleges like to hold them in hopes of recruiting the best to their colleges.”
Winners of the MCC event were announced at an afternoon banquet.
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