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Editorial: FFAntastic accomplishment
Op-Ed · February 01, 2018
Congratulations go out to West Branch High School’s FFA for not only earning fifth place in livestock judging in a national contest at the Denver Stock Show, but doing so after qualifying for the first time for any national contest.
The four-person team of seniors Katie Edge and Ethan Fetzer, junior Emily Harold and sophomore Brady Edge also took home ribbons for fourth place in sheep judging and fifth place in swine judging, subcategories to the overall livestock judging contest.
For those not familiar with judging livestock, the students need to evaluate cattle, sheep, goats and swine, placing a group of animals and then giving an articulate oral justification for why you placed the animal as you did.
They stand back and look up close, the try to determine size, thickness, volume and more. Are the market hogs lean and heavy-muscled? How much backfat in the steer? What was the weight of the sheep at 60 days, or 120 days? Are the animals bowlegged or knock-kneed? The students need to know the parts of live animals similar to those drawings in butcher shops that break a cow into types of meat — chuck, ribs, loins, etc. — but in greater detail.
Have you ever heard the terms and phrases “hybrid vigor,” “yield grade in sheep carcasses,” or “$EN value”? They have to know all of these. Their knowledge must include animal biology and farm markets.
It is a points-based contest as the students try to see what the judges see in each animal, so there is a level of both objective and subjective scrutiny in the contest. The students need to make their case, like lawyers in a bench trial, for 12 classes of cattle, swine, sheep and goats. They then must prepare six sets of reasons on the quality of livestock and how they rated them in each class.
It’s a rigorous and challenging competition, but also one that prepares them for real-life careers.
Kudos must also go out to WBHS FFA advisor Renee Thompson, who prepared the students, and Tipton’s Blake VanderMolen, who accompanied the students to Denver while Thompson took time off for maternity leave.
Katie, Ethan, Emily and Brady are to be commended for their accomplishments, as is the FFA program that prepared them for this achievement.
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