This past March, North Harford students in our local FFA traveled to the University of Maryland for the Spring Judging FFA competition.

There at the competition, students could compete in either horticulture, agronomy, dairy foods or public speaking.

On the horticulture team there was senior Amanda Gorsuch, junior Hannah Blische, junior Jessica Ruszkiewicz and senior Hannah Schantz. Mrs. Aimee Densmore helped the team prepare by practicing after school on Fridays.

“We go through all the fruits and nuts and vegetables. They have to know insects, diseases, and they have a written test they have to take and judge plates of vegetables on quality,” stated Densmore.

Overall the horticulture team placed 7th out of 21 teams.

“We had practice every week after school, and we had to prepare a lot on our own with study materials that were online,” stated team member Shantz who placed 17th with a silver ranking.

The agronomy also studied weekly, learning about different types of weeds, machinery, insects, judge hay and take a written test. The team was coached by junior James Thomas, and team members included junior Hailey Cornell, junior Lucas Beavers, and sophomore Jennifer Brown.

“Being coach by James was interesting since we’re all friends and joke around,” stated Cornell. “But we got together and it worked out.”

After school on Fridays, the agronomy team would study by using online powerpoints, and retaking past test. Together, they placed 4th out of 14 teams.

“When we went over the questions, any that we struggled with we looked up and found a reasoning behind it,” stated Cornell.

The dairy foods team was comprised of senior Jordan Borkoski , senior Taylor Stower, freshmen Hannah Rogers. Together they identify cheeses, milks, take a written test and have a team activity.

Other students, including freshmen Josee Cantin, junior Kimmie Doran, freshmen Morgan Johns, Schantz, and Brown all competed in the Public Speaking portion of the competition. Both Blische and Borkoski competed in two separate public speaking events. Ms. Katie Warner helped prepare the students, and six of them qualified for the state competition.

The next FFA competition takes place from June 26th through the 28th, and will be the FFA state convention.