The Eden Valley-Watkins FFA chapter enjoyed great success at the 2015 state FFA convention this year. The chapter brought 22 students to the University of Minnesota to compete in numerous contests. The BIG contest (Best Informed Greenhand) had two teams from EV-W compete. Team #1 placed 19th and team #2 placed 29th. Four students competed on the Meats Evaluation team, they placed 12th. George Lemke competed in the Poultry Evaluation contest as an individual, and he placed 46th. Katherine
Gathje competed in the Dairy Cattle Handling contest where she placed 14th.
The Dairy Cattle Evaluation team placed third. The Fish and Wildlife team placed fourth, with Corey Mathies winning the competition as an individual. James Gathje and Dillon Blonigen received their state FFA degrees, and James Gathje won the Dairy Entrepreneurship proficiency area. Arnie Gruenes placed silver for his Dairy Placement proficiency.
EV-W FFA at the U of M are, back row to front row, Mrs. Tracy Huhn, George Lemke, Robert Kipf, Landon Shoutz, Doug Fisher, Nate Peterson, Andrew Schlangen, Calvin Kipf, Laura Kipf, Emily Sieben, Paige Thielen, Katherine Gathje, Corey Mathies, Shelby Kuechle, Dillon Blonigen, James Gathje. Not pictured is Tyler Dockendorf. Submitted photo.
The following students competed on these teams
Meats Evaluation: (12th place)
Nate Peterson
Tyler Dockendorf
Andrew Schlangen
Paige Thielen
Poultry Evaluation: (46th place)
George Lemke
Fish and Wildlife: (4th place)
Corey Mathies
Landon Shoutz
Laura Kipf
Emily Sieben
Dairy Cattle Handling: (14th place)
Katherine Gathje
Dairy Cattle Evaluation: (3rd place)
James Gathje
Shelby Kuechle
Arnie Gruenes
Calvin Kipf
Best Informed Greenhand:
Team #1 (19th place)
Jodi Phillipp
James Colberg
Ashley Gruenes
Laura Kipf
Emily Sieben
Team #2 (29th place)
Calvin Kipf
Arnie Gruenes
Katie Gaslin
Anthony Schettler