Speaking of talent

By Cindy Votruba
MARSHALL — Marshall High School junior and FFA member Kirby Schmidt knows how to talk a good game, even about an international policy for food provisions and market for food aid.

Several members of the Marshall High School FFA chapter performed well at the Minnesota FFA competition in St. Paul on April 28, with three moving on to national competition in Indianapolis, Ind., in October.

Schmidt is one of those three, going to nationals in the extemporaneous speaking competition.

The Marshall High School FFA chapter also got eighth out of 180 chapters in the state. The application of the MHS FFA will be sent to the national level where it will be evaluated against all other chapters nationally.

Last year, Schmidt had applied for the national talent competition and made it, but he didn’t want to haul a marimba along.

This time, Schmidt’s heading to nationals for his speaking talent. To start, competitors had to choose from 20 or so random ag issues, topics and questions, he said.

“And then you go and draw three of those blindly and then you choose one,” Schmidt said.

Competitors then have half an hour to prepare a six-minute speech, Schmidt said.

Schmidt said his best choice was talking about creating an international policy for food provisions and market for food aid.

“I was really excited about that topic,” Schmidt said.

Competitors can use newspaper and Internet sources for their speech, Schmidt said, and they have to take the hard copy along for the actual presentation.

Schmidt said he had a really great newspaper article about the food crisis in Pakistan.

“I kind of built off of that, how biotechnology and genetic engineering can help,” Schmidt said.

In his speech, Schmidt said he also talked about Norman Borlog from the University of Minnesota, who, through genetic engineering developed a dwarf wheat plant.

“He saved more than 1 billion people,” Schmidt said about Borlog, who won the Nobel Peace prize.

When Schmidt learned he was moving on to Indianapolis, he was blown away.

Schmidt said he took a look at extemporaneous speaking topics from last year’s national competition.

“I have a lot of studying to do,” Schmidt said.

Also moving on to nationals are Jordana Beens and Shaun Ulrich, who won state proficiency awards. Ulrich won in the area of agricultural communication with his work at the Schwan Call Center, and Beens won in floriculture entrepreneurship.

“I have a little business where I sell flowers,” Beens said.

Beens grows morning glories in her greenhouse, and for the competition she had to tell what she does and how much she makes.

“I didn’t think it would go far,” Beens said.

Both Beens and Ulrich also received $250 scholarships.

Tylee Norman and Damien VanDenBroeke took part in the ag issues forum at state, earning seventh place. Brooke Heintzman and Brandon Boerboom are also on the team.

“It was a planned debate about ag issues,” Norman said. “We picked ethanol.”

For the debate, Norman said she and VanDenBroeke had to make a portfolio that included a summary and a bibliography as well as a PowerPoint.

“We had notecards to help us,” Norman said.

VanDenBroeke said his only other competition was ag sales.

“You got a product you were to sell,” VanDenBroeke said. His team’s product was apples.

Besides a test, VanDenBroeke said he had to do prospecting, calling someone up to sell the product.

In the nursery landscaping competition, Tyler Stahl said his team, which includes Austin Sheehan and Pete Hunstad.

“We did a lot better this year than last year,” Stahl said. The team placed 13th.

Stahl said the team had to take a test, and do math problems and tree identification.

“They pretty much gave us little sticks and we had to figure out what (tree) it was,” Stahl said.

Amanda Labat took part in the chapter exchange category, where members take a project the chapter did during the year and make a board for it. She chose the “Around the World in 80 Days” fund-raiser Marshall did this past winter.

State competition was Taylor Welu’s first actual FFA gathering. She was part of the meats evaluation team that took ninth place.

“You identify different cuts of meat from different species, and you have to say what species, the part of the animal (primal) and say the retail cut,” Welu said. “It’s hard to practice for because the cuts are not the same every time.”

Welu said competitors then have to identify the cuts by different muscles or bones.

“It was a good experience,” Welu said.



Other Marshall FFA state results:

Proficiency applications — Justine Heinis, second place in agricultural communications; Matt Johnson, second place in diversified horticulture placement; Tylee Norman, third place in fruit production; Adam Deutz, third place in diversified agricultural production placement; Bobby Klinkhammer, third place in diversified agricultural production

Ag sales — Maggie Toland, Brooke Heintzman, Maureen Carmody, Damien VanDenBroeke, seventh place

Meats evaluation — Anthony VanOverbeke, Brady Welu, Douglas Fischer, Taylor Welu

Farm business management — Eric DeBlieck, Cody Hoffmann, Craig Fischer, Josh Bruley, 14th place

Best informed greenhand — Eric DeBlieck, Craig Fischer, Taylor Welu

General livestock — Betsy Hansen, Kirby Schmidt, Cheyenne Smith

Dairy cattle evaluation — Nick Stassen, bronze