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Walkersville’s FFA Organization Qualifies for Nationals in Land and Range Judging

WHS Lions Pride Original Story:

by Susanna Chen for Walkersville High School Lion’s Pride

In an impressive demonstration of skill and achievement, four members of Walkersville’s Future Farmers of America organization qualified for Nationals in the Oklahoma Land and Range Judging competition.

Held in Oklahoma City from May 2nd-4th, the competition tests students’ skill in evaluating land to determine its ideal management and use. Factors such as slope (how the land is rising or falling), depth of the soil, surface runoff, and erosion are taken into account. With the gathered information, students are then able to conclude what crops are best suited for the land and how to properly maintain it.

Junior Sydney Grossnickle, a member of the FFA team, said, “Through the contest I learned a lot of things by just seeing if the land was cultivated or not cultivated…so it could be better for growing your corn or better for hiking and hunting.”

This year’s competitors, Grossnickle, junior Luke Gladhill and junior Kaitlin Stambaugh are a group of well-mannered students who all share an unquestionable enthusiasm for agriculture. They have prepared for the competition extensively through online research and learning from career and tech education teacher Gregory Stull’s experience.

“Study. Study. Study. That’s all I can say,” said Grossnickle about her team’s preparations for the competition.

Aside from the trip to Oklahoma, the competition benefits students greatly in terms of experience. Land is the foundation of agriculture and sets the standards for the quality of its products, such as crops and buildings.

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“The competition teaches you about the soil and how it continues through other forms of agriculture–if you’re able to plant on the land or is it better for other things. I just like agriculture in general and land — that’s just the start. You need soil to plant and build,” stated Gladhill.

In proving their skills, the competition also provides the students an opportunity to expand their scope of knowledge in agriculture.

Stambaugh added, “It helped me build my knowledge and better understanding of the land and what you live on. My future career is being a farmer so I need to know the land and know what I will be farming and what I need to add to it to help me better produce crops.”

The experience gained in this competition will most likely be used later in life as all of the competitors look towards a future career in agriculture. Stull commented on this. He said “When they get out in the real world, they can get a career in agricultural sciences or a related field. It can help them on their own property to determine how best to use it.”

FFA has a deeply set role in the Walkersville community, a town with agrarian roots. It is the oldest school based organization, founded in 1931. Consequently, many of the students holding a background in farming are able to, in Grossnickle words, “expand their horizons” in school through participation in events such as the land and range judging competition.

Gladhill stated “FFA is important to me because it’s a forum for me to express my love for agriculture to other people by teaching it to elementary schoolers or helping out my fellow classmates. I mean, just being around it as a little kid, it introduced it to me and then I took an ag class.”

“Agriculture has always been a big part of my life whether it was just animals or telling people about it,” said Grossnickle. “FFA allowed me to take what I was good at and put it to different degrees. For example, I didn’t know much about land at all and I turned around and joined the team. FFA is very important because you learn so many things…you benefit from a lot of things.”

“It’s a lot of hands on learning and you get to become really close with the people you work it–like a family,” said Stambaugh.

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