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NS FFA chapter organizes annual fundraising sale and shares their success at recent invitational.
The NS FFA chapter competed at the Wasatch Back Invitational on Dec. 5, and alongside the plant and soil science class, have also been preparing for their annual fundraiser.
The FFA had students competing in livestock evaluation, horse evaluation, agriculture systems, floriculture, and poultry contests. Sophomore Sawyer Christensen, sophomore Waylon Brinkerhoff, junior Brynlee Neves, and junior Weston Smith took sixth place in poultry as a team. Junior Bailee Jaques took third place in horse evaluation.
“ I felt like I did pretty good coming back from the competition.” Jaques said. “It’s just nice to know that I did do pretty good.”
Jaques has done horse evaluation competitions in both FFA and 4H acquiring a lot of knowledge and relationships in the process.
“I really like the lady that was our judge there. She used to show 4H with me. I think that she is very correct and very even about her placings and she doesn’t switch up the way she judges,”
Students competing in horse evaluation evaluate the horses based on a lot of criteria including their body structure, how they move, and how well the horse can perform a maneuver.
“We have one pattern class at least so that you can judge based off of how well a horse can do a maneuver,” Jaques said. “So not all horses are superwell put together, but if they can complete a pattern better than the other horses, they can win that area. It shows [the judges] that you don’t have a bias for a certain horse.”
Jaques uses resources from the American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA) and the American Paint Horse Association (APHA) in order to study and prepare for competitions.
“The AQHA and APHA both have big programs for judging,” Jaques said. “They both have a whole book for it that you can read and it shows you the correctness of their bone and what that would look like on a horse.”
It is always a good day for the FFA when one of their students wins.
“It makes you feel really good,” agriculture teacher and FFA advisor Jens Andreasen said. “You always hold your breath a little bit ‘cause it’s like, ‘Did [the judges] add [the scores] up right’. To have them see that their practice pays off and gets them to a point where they could win a contest makes you feel real’, real’ good.”
Andreasen organizes fundraisers annually to fund the FFA and his other classes. In the past he has done a potato sale, but this year he is doing the sale differently.
“This year, rather than doing the potato sale, I figured I would rely on a poinsettia sale.” Andreasen said.
To optimize fundraising, Andreasen is also offering Christmas decorations made of welded horseshoes in the sale. Andreasen has a simple goal for the sale.
“[Our goal is to] break even,” Andreasen said. “That’s the first goal that we set and then we try to make a little extra for contests.”
Andreasen likes to include his plant and soil science class by allowing them to apply the things that they learn in their class to growing and nurturing the poinsettia plants until the sale.
“I try to incorporate my classroom working in the greenhouse as much as possible,” Andreasen said. “Everybody likes hands-on learning rather than just sitting in the classroom.”
The students seem to agree with Andreasen.
“It’s just fun to not have to be in class and be able to go take care of [the plants],” freshman Kaylee Cook said.
