Fairmont FFA shines at national judging competition

FAIRMONT - Out of 16 teams, Fairmont High School's JV and Varsity FFA Livestock Judging teams placed second and fourth at the National Barrow Pig Show Judging Contest in Austin, Minn. this past Sunday.

In addition, eighth-grader Morgan Ruppert of the JV team placed second overall of the 43 individuals entered. She said it was a good competition.

"The competition was pretty stiff," she said. "There was a wide variety of pigs that were being shown, and there were six different classes of different breeds of swine. It was a good learning experience, too."

This is the first time Fairmont coach and FFA advisor Nick Pease said he has brought a group to this event, but their reputation for quality preceded them, and they received an invite from the director of the Barrow Show.

"They sent me an email back in July," he said. "I sent the invite to Dr. Annette Kurt and I said, 'If you want, if the kids want to go, I’m just going to let you know I’m willing to take them.' It was kind of rough on a Sunday, getting up early, getting kids out and going, but I’m very glad we did. It was a good time."

Ahead of the competition, junior Avery Kurt of the varsity team said many of her teammates had been looking at pigs all summer.

"We show pigs, so we never really stopped," she said. "We went to a couple judging contests over the summer, and during the season we’ll practice on Wednesday mornings."

On top of the FFA judging competition, contests for junior college and senior college teams were also held. Fairmont FFA judges got to see individuals from Texas Tech and A&M, Kansas State, Arkansas, and Iowa State, among others, showcase their skills.

"That was the first time that we’ve ever judged while the collegiate people were also judging," said. "They were very intense. They dress super fancy."

"Lots of notes," Pease said. "Every little thing the collegiate judges were writing down because they have to give many sets of reasons, so they want to make sure they have as many notes as possible. Like Avery said, they were dressed to the hilt. They looked good. They were intense and very focused on the class they were judging."

Having these colleges there had trickle-down effects for the FFA kids as well.

"What I thought was best about it was these kids get to see the senior [teams]," Pease said. "These are tough schools that are competing. This is a national. It’s a big show, so these guys are judging the pigs in this show. They’re quality animals there, and that makes it a lot more interesting to judge."

With a show this early in the school year, Pease said it has its pros and cons.

"The pro is these kids get out there, they get to see some classes, they start seeing the upcoming trends," he said. "The con is that these are very high-quality animals, and are they ever going to be able to judge something like this again? You might do well at a show like this because you’re used to judging quality, but what are you going to do when you don’t get to judge that type of quality of animal? Are you going to falter, or are you going to judge them just as well?"

To see the success the students had in a competition of this magnitude, with the quality of animals present, Pease said it means a lot.

"It means that the adults that are helping out our FFA chapter are really involved," he said. "They’re really helping these kids out, and they’re showing these kids that they can succeed."

The Fairmont FFA Livestock Judging team has a few more competitions coming up, including a University of Minnesota Invite Oct. 7, a regional horse judging competition in Fairmont Oct. 8 and a regional dairy showmanship contest Oct. 14.

With these contests and the rest of the year in front of them, Pease and Kurt agreed they want to continue their run of success and skill by making it back to the State FFA Competition.