District 12 FFA contests bring 250 to campus

 The two purple ribbon winners in each of the 10 contests are eligible to advance to the competition at the State FFA Convention that will be in Lincoln in April.

Among the event winners was the Gordon-Rushville Ag Demonstration team made up of Emilee Elwood, Sara Marlatt and Charmayne Strong.  They demonstrated freeze branding and identification tagging.

Also earning a trip to the state convention from Gordon-Rushville was Cole Kayton, who won the second place purple ribbon in Extemporaneous Speaking.  His topic was “How Has Traditional Agriculture Been Affected by the Increased Demand for Organic Products.”

Three Cody-Kilgore students won the trophies that were given to the top purple ribbon winner in speaking contests.  They were Grace Ford in Creed Speaking, Cody Trump in Cooperative Speaking and Tyler O’Neill in Natural Resources Speaking.

Two of the speech contests winners were from Bayard.  They were JaLee Pilkington in Senior Public Speaking and Kayellen Hall in Job Interview.

Other top winners in the speaking events were Michael Ferguson of Kimball in Junior Public Speaking and Janelle Kesterson of Bridgeport in Extemporaneous Speaking.

The topic Kesterson drew was “How Do Animal Rights Groups Affect Productive Agriculture?”

As usual, Kimball won the Senior Parliamentary Procedure competition.  This was the 11th consecutive year that Kimball has won top honors in the event at the district contest.  Scottsbluff was the runner-up in the senior contest and won the Junior Parliamentary Procedure event by edging out Kimball. 

Alliance was the runner-up in the Ag Demonstration contest and will advance to the state convention.

Individuals winning runner-up honors in the speech contests besides Gordon-Rushville’s Kayton were Cole Retchless of Bridgeport, Creed; Tylii Muncie of Scottsbluff, Cooperative; Amanda Lower (pronounced Lauer) of Alliance, Natural Resources; Gillian Cheney of Cody-Kilgore, Junior Public Speaking; Kristen Fellhoulter of Bridgeport, Senior Public Speaking; and Chance McAllister of Minatare, Job Interview. 

The State FFA president, Alix Mashino of Spencer, and one of the state vice presidents, Andrew Ambriz of West Point, helped with the contests and awarded the prizes. 

The purple and blue ribbon winners in each contest follow:

More blue ribbon winners from the two schools may be found in the results below:

Creed Speaking:  Purples—1, Grace Ford, Cody-Kilgore; 2, Cole Retchless, Bridgeport. Blues—J.T. Adamson, Cody-Kilgore; Robin Ferguson, Gordon-Rushville; Colin Fellhoelter, Bridgeport; Madie Snyder, Kimball; Dakota Randles, Kimball; and Erika Derr, Morrill; 

Cooperative Speaking: Purples—1, Cody Trump, Cody-Kilgore; 2, Tylii Muncie, Scottsbluff. Blues—Jalen Grant, Cody-Kilgore, and Katherine MacIntosh, Garden County.

Natural Resources Speaking: Purples—1, Tyler O’Neill, Cody-Kilgore; 2, Amanda Lower, Alliance. Blues—Kate Orr, Gordon-Rushville, and Leah Seymour, Garden County.

Junior Public Speaking: Purples—1, Michael Ferguson, Kimball; 2, Gillian Cheney, Cody-Kilgore. Blues—Melissa Jech, Gordon; Rebekah Wade, Cody-Kilgore; Matt Davis, Hemingford; and Katie Ramos, Bridgeport.

Senior Public Speaking: Purples—1, JaLee Pilkington, Bayard; 2, Kristen Fellhoelter, Bridgeport. Blues—Shelby Anderson, Gordon-Rushville; Conner Zimmer, Bridgeport; Taryn Thayer, Sioux County; Shannon Schneider, Cody-Kilgore; and Charmayne Strong, Gordon.

Extemporaneous Speaking: Purples—1, Janelle Kesterson, Bridgeport; 2, Cole Kayton, Gordon-Rushville.  Blue—Ashtyn Shrewsbury, Alliance; Austin Wobig, Cody-Kilgore; Beth Turbiville, Sioux County; Jessica Fossand, Kimball; McCaleb Hasse, Morrill; and Tyler Koke, Minatare.

Job Interview—1, Kayellyn Hall, Bayard; 2, Chance McAllister, Minatare. Blues—Olyvia Barnes, Cody-Kilgore; Amanda Kaufman, Morrill; Tessa Gale, Cody-Kilgore; Alisha Heelan, Garden County; Courtney Beyers, Bridgeport; Jessa Shaw, Kimball; Emily Elwood, Gordon-Rushville; Brian Evertson, Kimball; and Jessa Shaw, Kimball.

Junior Parliamentary Procedure: Purples—1, Scottsbluff (Jacelyn Bruner, Jaime Carlson, Mikayla Fulk, Bailey Imel, Sam McQuistan, Kaldon Meininger, Jarrett Ratliff and Levi Shope), 2, Kimball (Kailey Dickerson, Dakota Randles, Trent Rutledge, Kaylee Schoeneman, Madie Snyder and Ben Tussing). Blues—Cody Kilgore, Creek Valley A and Creek Valley B.

Senior Parliamentary Procedure: Purples—1, Kimball 1, (Brian Evertson, Kayla Lukassen, Dalton Luppen, Emily Poss, Tessa Shaw and Colton Snyder); 2, Scottsbluff (Alexis Aragon, Tevyn Baldwin, Tylii Muncie, Katey Myers, Chrissy Peters and Taylor Russell). Blue—Kimball 2.

Ag Demonstration: Purples—1, Gordon-Rushville (Emilee Elwood, Sara Marlatt and Charmayne Strong); 2, Alliance (Krista Carter, Chase Dye, Roy Kesterson and Ashtyn Shrewsbury). Blues—Cody-Kilgore, Bridgeport 1 and Bridgeport 2, Morrill and Hemingford.