Photo by Jenny Kirk Sarah Lee, an ag teacher and FFA adviser at Springfield Public School, goes over instructions before more than 50 high school students take part in the Small Animal Veterinary Science contest — one of 18 Career Development Events offered — during the 2019 Ag Bowl Scholarship Invitational recently at Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall.

MARSHALL — The Ag Bowl Scholarship Invitational presented by Ralco and recently held at Southwest Minnesota State University provided the prime opportunity to learn about and celebrate agriculture for nearly 700 high school FFA members and SMSU college students who were part of the experience.

“The importance of a career involved with the production of food can never be overemphasized,” Ralco President Emeritus Jon Knochenmus said. “What you are doing is very important for the peace and security of the world. I’ve had the opportunity to travel to many different foreign countries and we here in America have been blessed in regards to food. We never think about the next meal because we have plenty of food at our beck and call. In many, many countries, that’s not the way it is.”

After welcoming all the teachers, students, fellow sponsors and advisers, Knochenmus shared his excitement regarding how the event has grown since being established in 2012.

“I was reminiscing before the event and I think we had three or four communities of students here the first year,” he said. “The Ag Bowl had maybe 25-30 students and today, my understanding is that 750 of you registered. That is really exciting.”

Knochenmus praised people in the ag industry for their amazing innovative and adaptability capabilities, inspiring the students by hinting that they just might be the next Bill Gates or Walt Disney of agriculture and to follow their passion.

“Knowledge is power and knowledge is the fuel that drives human life,” Knochenmus said. “It enables us to overcome problems and situations that we’re going to encounter. Talk to anyone with a little gray hair — that’s part of life. You’ll always engage in problems. I really encourage you and applaud you for choosing to get involved in gaining knowledge because it will prepare you well for your future.”

While about 650 high school students from around the region participated in the 18 different Career Development Events (CDEs), nearly 40 SMSU students helped organize and manage the contests.

“I’m on the planning committee at SMSU and serve as a student rep,” SMSU senior Gabby Power said. “We wanted to make everything more student oriented, so we had more control over it. I coordinated 38 helpers who are students on campus.”

Power said many of the college volunteers not only helped during the event but also prior to it. Having assisted organizers Paul Lanoue and Jennifer Graven for a few years, Power said she has learned how to delegate.

“We had to create the contest materials for the 18 different contests on Friday,” she said. “For example, Fish and Wildlife had over 100 students participating in it. We needed 10 mammal pelts and insect species displays for the students to identify, so one person had to go out and find all of those. Some of the students wrote tests or did problem-solving practicums.”

SMSU students Rebecca Manteuffel and Paige Vanderwerff supervised the effort for the Creed Speaking contest.

“We’re in charge of the Creed Speaking, so we’re checking registrations of students and then we’ll be going up to the football stadium and calling people in for the judges,” Manteuffel said. “They have to recite the FFA creed and then get asked questions on it. It’s usually for freshmen or new FFA members.”

Both volunteers are ag education majors at SMSU.

“I am elementary education and ag education,” Manteuffel said. “A lot of the people helping are ag education majors.”

Vanderwerff said she was in FFA throughout middle school and high school, so it just made sense to help out.

“I’ve learned a lot about it,” she said. “(Creed Speaking) is like the first contest you compete in for CDEs, to learn a little bit about FFA. The creed has been around since the 1930s. And they just contacted the family of the man who wrote it. He’s from Wisconsin.”

Along with three SMSU students, Springfield ag teacher Sarah Lee helped proctor the Small Animal Veterinary Science contest.

“There are three parts to this contest,” Lee said. “When you are in this section sitting at the tables, you’ll be doing the written exam. There are 50 bubbles to fill in neatly. If you have messy bubbles, the Scantron won’t read them and you won’t get your points. The second part is the identification section. Then when you go upstairs, where the practicum is, there are three parts to that. The first two parts are going to be similar to the ID where you bubble in the numbers. Practicum Part 3 will be a multiple choice.”

The FFA students had the opportunity to compete in team and individual CDEs, with scholarships being awarded to the top two finishers in each. Ag Issues, Parliamentary Procedure and Conduct of Chapter Meetings were team contests. In addition to Creed Speaking, Fish and Wildlife and Small Animal, individual events were: Ag Sales, Crops, Employment Skills, Extemporaneous Public Speaking, Farm Business Management, Floriculture, Forestry, Meats, Milk Quality, Prepared Public Speaking and Soils.

The Meats competition was new this year and only included the identification portion. Russell-Tyler-Ruthton student Lauren Alsaker finished first in the contest and received a $500 scholarship. Westbrook-Walnut Grove’s Ben Olson was second and took home a $250 scholarship.

WWG’s Talitha Horkey and Makayla Ewy earned the top two honors in Floriculture, while Camryn Bunting was second in Soil.

Along with RTR and WWG, area schools competing included Canby, Marshall, Minnesota, Tracy Area and Wabasso.

“I thought it went really well,” Power said. “We had a few barriers with the weather as we lost about five schools and we had other schools come late. We were expecting 750 high school students originally, but we still had about 650 in attendance, which is close to the numbers from last year. We had 703 a year ago.”

Full results can be found at: https://smsumustangs.com/sports/2019/1/14/2017-ag-bowl-scholarship-invite-results.aspx?id=927