The Madison FFA has seen a great year of success. The success of advancing to state or section for all contests completed so far this year. The contests include livestock skill-a-thon, forestry, welding, and chapter meeting. This success is due to the members and advisors who spent many hours practicing and studying to do their best when it came time for the contest.
The first contest that FFA competed in this year with great success and making state for the first time was the Livestock Skill-a-thon. Team one for area placed 3rd, including Michael Briggs, 8th; Abby Ferguson, 17th; Lainie Alexander, 18th; and Lilly Cox. At the state competition, the Michael Briggs, Ferguson, Sydney Huff, and Jenna Martin team placed 27th overall. Team two for area placed 5th, which included Sydney Huff, who placed 12th; Ashlyn Dryden, who placed 19th; Berlynn Conover, and Ruthie Hornbrook. Ben Copland, Connover, and Dryden placed 35th at the state competition.
Skill-a-thon is a contest about the variety of things to do with livestock. Briggs and Dryden explain that the contest is about judging meats, breeds, equipment, feeds, and other things about livestock.
The contest comes with a favorite part for everyone. Some find getting to know the other people to be their favorite part and others find learning more about a specific subject to be their favorite part. Briggs stated, “My favorite part about skill-a-thon is getting to know the other competition.”
Dryden said, “My favorite part is getting to know the different breeds of each animal and learning the feed ID.”
This contest came with some challenges for each individual. The challenge was different for each individual. However, they did not let the challenge stop them. They figured out a way to overcome it. Dryden stated, “A challenge I faced was getting the memorization down for each animal along with how to pronounce the name of some of them. I overcame this challenge by researching the breeds of each animal and how to pronounce them.”
Now that the contest is over some have found what the team as a whole can improve on to make them better for next year. Briggs said, “As a team, they could improve on the knowledge that they know, so this year’s team is better for next year.”
Forestry was the next contest the chapter competed in, which also sent two teams to the state contest. Team one for area placed 1st included Ferguson 2nd, Ayden Liter 2nd, Michael Briggs 4th, and Huff 8th. At the state competition, the team placed 6th, with Ferguson 12th. Team two for area placed 2nd included Conover 1st, Copeland 9th, Dryden, and Brenten Wright. At state, the team placed 17th, with Copeland placed 14th.
Liter stated, “Forestry is the study of leaves, seeds, and the diseases and insects that relate to them.”
Some explained how they loved the closeness the contest creates as they spend so much time together. Liter said, “My favorite part is having a close-knit family for almost a couple of months. We see each other a couple of times a week for practice. And if you go to the state contest you get to stay the night and hang out with each other.”
Liter and Copeland said that there were several factors and strategies that went into the team’s success. Copeland stated, “Doing Quizlets and Kahoots with Mrs. Briggs and the rest of the team. Also, practicing and doing around the world with forestry-related questions helped everyone to get better.”
Liter said, “Showing up to practices and focusing on the things that you are struggling most with and helping each other out.”
Welding was the next contest the chapter competed in, which had four teams qualify for and compete at state. Team one for advanced included Clayton Branstetter, who placed 2nd, and Ferguson, who placed 3rd overall, and the team placed 1st. Team one for advanced included Wright and Waller. Overall, they placed 2nd. Team one for Beginners placed 1st. The team included Briggs and Carson Branstetter. Team Two placed 2nd and included William Uhl and Copeland.
“Welding contest is about showing your skills and how advanced you are in presenting the welds. The contest does multiple different processes of welding. Advanced does stick and mig. This shows that you know how to read a blueprint and how to weld.” Stated Ferguson
Ferguson and Uhl explained that their favorite part about the contest is just being given the opportunity to compete as they love to weld and the contest allows them to see where they are at.
“The amount of time put into practicing helped the team to be so successful at the contest.” Said Uhl
Ferguson explained how she spent at least 20 hours practicing for the contest. She stated that she did not have to do this but that’s what she would do in her free time because of the joy it brought her.
Chapter Meeting only had one team compete and placed 2nd, which included Huff, Briggs, Liter, Cox, Wright, Alexander, Addy Colen, and Lilly Waller.
Huff stated, “The parlay contest is about showing our chapter’s skills on how to run a meeting.”
Some of the participants felt that the time spent learning and practicing helped the team to be so successful at the chapter level. Cox said, “We met as a team at the beginning of the week to go over topics that may come up during our parliamentary contest at the chapter level and conducted a mock meeting. I think meeting together and working as a team on particular weaknesses helped us in developing our skills and strengthening our meeting conduction. On an individual level our members practiced using their personal preferred technique, so that each individual study method reaped the maximum benefit.”
Those who participate in the Chapter Meeting will be competing in the section contest on Thursday in Terre Haute.