A group of students representing the Big Flat Chapter of the FFA attended the KMON Career Development Events (CDE) in Great Falls on January 18. They fielded teams in the categories of agronomy, livestock, and meats. The Agronomy Team, comprised of Tate Beck, Caleb Zellmer, JR Brown, and Dakota Krass, captured sixth place overall in a field of twenty-two teams. The Meats Evaluation Team, consisting of Trent Billmayer, Cassidy Grabofsky, Bridget Reed, and Carson Maloney, captured eighth place.

In the Agronomy CDE, FFA members performed commodity evaluations, identified plants and seeds, demonstrated knowledge of equipment and machinery, and developed a soils and pest management plan. Individually, team members also completed a general knowledge exam. Through this CDE, students not only validated the many ways that science and technology collaborate to grow the world's major food crops but revealed an understanding of sustainable agriculture and environmental stewardship practices. Zellmer emerged as the high scoring individual on the team. His performance enabled him to make the top ten in a field of 71 Agronomy CDE competitors overall.

Both Zellmer and Krass commented that identifying the seeds of various plants and weeds was the most difficult part of the agronomy competition.

From across the state, seventeen teams participated in the Meats Evaluation and Technology CDE. To earn their position among these competitors, Turner's team assessed various meat cuts and placed them in classes, justifying their placings and answering questions about them. The meats included for placement were lamb loin chops, pork rib chops, lamb center slices, and beef ribeye.

The Meats CDE group also performed a written exam, identified wholesale versus retail cuts, and evaluated beef carcasses for quality and yield grade. The high scoring member on that team, Trent Billmayer, reported that he was happy to have conquered the equation to calculate yield grade. As an individual, Billmayer ranked 17th in this CDE, which fielded 68 total competitors.

Finally, during the Livestock Evaluation CDE, Charlie Calvert and Joe Trautmann worked against four-member teams. With this disadvantage, the pair ranked 25th in their CDE where they not only took a written exam but rank ordered market pigs, market wethers, market goats, steers, and heifers and gave oral reasons to support their placing decisions. They further assessed market pigs and steers for desirable traits such as size, build/body frame, and sound stance. Understanding what makes a good market or breeding animal is valuable knowledge that every livestock producer needs in order to make decisions about which animals to keep and which to cull.

To prepare for the competition, Big Flat FFA members reviewed materials made available to them by their Advisor, Mr. Nathan Urie. These materials are housed on Google Classroom.

Next up for FFA members will be the Fergus Mechanics Meet in Lewiston on January 28. According to Mechanics Contest Chairperson, Jordan Stilson, the categories for this year's competition will be comparable to the state mechanics contest and will include tests in the following categories: welding, structures, electric, equipment, small engines, plumbing, general test, tool identification, maintenance (tool sharpening or machinery manuals service interval) and agriculture technology. Although there will be competitions for both the senior and junior divisions, this year's contest will NOT have a team problem. Awards and prizes will be provided for top team scores and top individual scores in both divisions. Team scores will be determined from the sum of the top three individual scores of each team of four members as designated at registration.