Lind-Ritzville FFA students impress judges in Indianapolis

Three teams of high school students scored mightily at an October FFA convention in Indianapolis.

"Our FFA chapter won a few state contests last year, and when you win a state contest, you can go compete at the national FFA convention," said Andy Williams, the FFA program instructor at Lind-Ritzville High School.

Thirteen high school students visited the convention, divided into dairy cattle evaluation, farm and agribusiness management, and meats evaluation.

"All students obviously did great," Williams said, "the dairy team earned a bronze medal, and the farm and agribusiness management team earned a silver medal. The meats evaluation team was the first one that I coached (and) they were national champions. So they won the entire contest."

What did William do that made this significant difference?

"I didn't do anything," he said. "They did it. But this is a team that has been working together. A couple of the students have been working together four or five years. It was a complete investment by the students. They knew what they were capable of. They committed themselves to the highest level. We set up practices for them to go to down at WSU. We did that three or four times this fall, in addition to a number of times in years past. We had a goal. They had their eyes on the prize and they were able to achieve it."

There was tangible award associated with the prize. His students on the national award team judging meats will each receive a $1,000 scholarship.

"They are being heavily recruited to go onto college and compete in meats or meat animal evaluation or livestock judging at the collegiate level," Williams said.

William's daughter Alyssa, 17, a senior, was a member of the meats team.

"When people see Washington at a national contest, I think they're very surprised when we do well, because Washington hasn't been doing well for a very long time, and we're starting to build that up," Alyssa said. "When we got to the contest, the Virginia team was sitting next to us and the coach said, 'I'm scared of you guys. You guys are from Washington,' so I think we're building up a reputation."

Alyssa's father has been instructing FFA for 20 years and he does occasionally hear from former students working in an agriculture career.

"I was told by an old ag teacher one time that students that really invest in the FFA program will not realize the full effect that they get from it, how much they get out of it, how far forward it sets them. for about five years," Williams said. "It really hits them, 'This has set me up for success,' and I hear that from a lot of kids down the road a ways."

The younger Williams said she has not yet developed a specialty in agriculture.

"In middle school, I decided not to play sports anymore," Alyssa said, "and I made FFA, and like showing cattle. I made that my main priority. As a whole, competing is my specialty. I like to compete. I'm not going to do anything halfway."

Alyssa thinks her FFA success might make enemies, rather than friends, out of envy perhaps?

"I've been making some friends, people that I know are committed to Texas Tech, and are going to be on the judging teams there," Alyssa said. "It's good to meet those people, because I know they're going to be my friends in college."

And she certainly has friends on her Lind-Ritzville High School team.

"It's something that we all fell in love with because we were all enjoying it and doing it together," Alyssa said. "Standing in a meat cooler for 10 hours at a time can't really be fun unless you're doing it with the right people, so I definitely think our team is made of the right people for us to win that contest. We had to have a team connection."

Junior Beau Fode, 16, was a meats team member, and he is looking to get a college scholarship to continue his education.

"Texas Tech's always a great option," he said. "Anyplace that's willing to offer I'd be willing to go to as long as the place is right for me and I like the campus and everything like that. I just want to say that judging has been probably one of the greatest experiences of my life. If you were to ask me three or four years ago how successful I'd be in judging, I would think you were talking crazy. Judging has been a blessing in disguise for me."

Junior Maeve Korthuis, 16, said she was not an active judging member of the team.

"I didn't mark a card," she said, "but next year I'm going to bring (experience) back to the next team so that we can go to the nationals again. Then after that, I'm keeping my options open, but I would definitely look into doing it at college."