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The Johnson City FFA livestock made history by placing eighth at the state contest last Saturday at Texas A&M University. Team members are Chandler Wagner, Tyler Troppy, Noel Porter, and Melinda Holdridge. They are only the second team from the chapter to ever place in the top 10 at the state contest. The other team that accomplished this feat was in 1978. That team placed fourth and the team members were Cody Haynes, Lance Haynes, and Douglas Kunz.

This year’s team started their year with two contests in the fall in Brenham and Seguin. During the spring the team then competed in eight more contest leading up to the area contest held two weeks ago in College Station. These area contests are held at various universities across the state.

This year there were 560 teams competing at the area contests and 84 teams advanced to the state competition. This team dedicated themselves to improving their skills throughout the judging season and it paid off at state. They traveled together for over 3200 miles and they participated in twelve contests during the year.

In the livestock contest they must place six placing classes which consist of classes of four animals consisting of market classes and breeding classes of all three species of livestock. They must also do three cull or keep classes of eight animals using EPD’s in which they must decide which four animals they would keep in a ranching operation. They must also slaughter grade and feeder grade 10 head of cattle. They then are asked questions on three of the placing classes and then they take a written test which tests their knowledge on the livestock industry.

The team is trained by Myron Uecker. Marsha Wagner, Sherry Conlin, and Tracy Smith served as chaperones on contests that required overnight stays. All of these members have set their goal of being the first team to ever win state in livestock judging from Johnson City.