Above: Fairmont FFA’s horse judging team recently placed first at the regional compeition and will be going to the state convention in April. From left: Lili Bulfer, Justine Eisenmenger, Hadley Artz, Paige DeBoer and Neveah Rahm.

FAIRMONT — Fairmont’s FFA Chapter recently saw positive results at this month’s regional competition, where horse, livestock and dairy judging took place. Two of Fairmont’s teams qualified for the State Convention, which will take place in April.

Katie Elder, the school’s FFA co-advisor, said the competition took place at the Sibley East fairgrounds in Arlington, Minnesota. Fifteen of Fairmont’s students participated.

The horse judging team placed first out of 29 teams competing and earned a spot at the state competition. It consisted of Justine Eisenmenger, Paige DeBoer, Lili Bulfer, Nevaeh Rahm and Hadley Artz.

The dairy judging team also did well, placing 7th out of 25 teams. It will also go on to the state competition. The livestock team placed 10th out of 27 teams.

Going on to compete at the state convention is extra exciting this year, as there was no state FFA convention in 2020.

“Last year students competed virtually. They gave us videos to judge, which was kind of difficult for students to do in the classroom,” Elder said.

She said students enjoyed this month’s regional competition after not being able to participate in person in any last year.

“They told me seeing the animals were completely different than seeing them on videos,” Elder said.

She said last year they got a livestock judging subscription and practiced with videos in the classroom.

“I told them last year it was more of a practice year until we could compete. They brought it to the table this year,” she said.

The regional competitions involves judging the animal, giving a set of reasons and explains them to a judge.

“This promotes responsibility. It’s kind of like a sports team. They had to come to practice, they weren’t allowed to just show up,” Elder said.

She and co-advisor, Cassandra Brown, said it also teaches students responsibility and time management.

“It’s exposing the kids to career and life skills that they’ll use forever,” said Brown.

Brown said they’re still doing membership for FFA.

“Right now we have 40 or 50 signed up,” Elder said.

To be in FFA, students have to be enrolled in at least one of Fairmont High School’s many ag classes, which span across grades 7-12 and include landscaping, animal science and exploring agriculture.

Brown said she’s also working on some community service ideas for FFA.

“We’re collecting socks for the month of October and calling it sock-tober. We’ll donate them to organizations in town that need them,” she said.

In addition to that, teams are prepping for the next regional competition, which will take place in November. That one will be for poultry, soil and milk quality.

The Minnesota FFA State Convention will take place in April. After that, students may go on to represent Minnesota at Nationals.