CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — Nearly 80 FFA members from Ross County high schools learned about jobs in agriculture at the Explore Ag Career Day Sept. 13. Students from Zane Trace FFA participated in workshops led by industry experts in areas like livestock production, agronomy, forestry, soil science, ag communications and wildlife management.
The workshops included hands-on activities so students could practice some of the skills people in each of those career fields would use in their daily work. Students measured the diameter of harvestable trees, evaluated the texture of soils and graded hay as part of their rotations.
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RACINE, Ohio — On Aug. 18, the Meigs FFA chapter and the Racine Southern FFA chapter hosted the Second Annual Livestock Judging Contest at the Meigs County Fair.
After the participants judged the animals, the scores were calculated using a livestock judging scoring system, and participants were placed in each of the age divisions. There were three age divisions: adult, senior and junior. The participant in each division with the scores that were closest to the score provided by an official judge received a prize.
The official judge this year was Chase Meeks, who has an animal science degree with a meat science focus from Ohio State University. He is also a butcher at the Local Butcher in Athens, Ohio and raises his own beef cattle.
Overall, the contest had 80 participants. The adult division top five were Shelby Runyoun, Tim Lawson, Samantha Smith, Meghan Parry and Misty Evans.
In the senior division, the top five were Whitney Durst, Wyatt Smith, Melinda Lawson, Lizzie Parry and McKenzie Long. The junior division top five were Marcy Evans, Makenna Rankin, Amos Schoover, Kadence Zuspan and Lucas Roush.
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MILLERSBURG, Ohio — On Sept. 10, the West Holmes FFA dairy judging team competed at the Wayne County Fair dairy judging contest. Wyatt Schlauch placed first, Laina Croskey placed third and John Maloney was just outside of the top five.
They judged six classes of animals. The classes consisted of heifers and cows, and participants evaluated them on their dairy strength and on the showring quality of the animal.
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