Graham FFA competes at district, four advancing

Four Graham High School FFA students punched their ticket to the area competition after advancing this week in the district Leadership Development Events (LDE) in Springtown.

The students participated Monday, Nov. 6 in 10 different events in the district competition. According to FFA rules, students cannot take part in more than two events so some students overlapped.

While Senior division events are for sophomores, juniors and seniors, the Greenhand division is for freshman or junior high level students. Freshman Renata Garcia finished second place in the Greenhand Spanish Creed Speaking and will advance to the area event.

Juniors Brailey Brooks and Aneida Huerta took first place in Senior Creed Speaking and Senior Spanish Creed Speaking, respectively. Both students recited the creeds and then had to answer questions from a panel of judges in order to advance. Kimber Pratt also participated in Senior Creed Speaking and took third place, narrowly missing the opportunity to advance.

“This is my first year competing and so far, it's going pretty good,” Huerta said. “...I really am working on finding ways to answer the questions better, and how to make them more developed, and really just to be more expressive when I say the creed.”

Another area in which Graham has someone moving on was the Job Interview event. Junior Brazier Joy took first place and moved onto the area event, as well.

The Job Interview event is one of the more extensive parts of the LDEs. Joy had to research a real job he might apply for in the future and he wrote a cover letter and made a resume to submit before the event. He has been running his own cattle operation for many years and found a job posting online to base his interview around.

During the contest, Joy participated in a phone interview with a judge, completed an in-person interview with another judge and wrote a follow-up letter about the job.

“(The judges will) send us a score sheet. So they'll have the rubric and they'll circle what areas I need to improve on there,” Joy said. “...I'll be able to go off of that and see which areas they think I need to improve on. That way when I go to the area contests I'm more prepared.”

The remaining six contests saw excellent results from the GHS students.

Maddy Erwin took 12th individually in Greenhand Creed Speaking.

In Agricultural Advocacy, Cody Epperson, Emma Jobe, Mylee Lattimore and Drake Elliott came in fourth. Hannah Hollingsworth, Hailey Fuentes, Meea Noyola and Kanyon Crawford took sixth in Public Relations. Hannah Hollingsworth, Hayden Horn and Ozzy Trejo finished seventh in Radio Broadcasting.

The remaining two groups participated in Senior and Greenhand Quiz, with both teams placing fifth overall. The senior team was made up of Kiya Cope, Jamie Smith, Kanyon Crawford, Mckaylee Metcalf, Case Etling, Jayden Frost, Mariah Frost and Billie Ramsey. The greenhand group was Joey Livingston, Braxton Moore, Cale Thomas and Lyra Logan.

The area round for the four students moving on will be held Monday, Nov. 20 at Abilene Wylie High School and if any student advances from there, the state event will be held Friday, Dec. 1 at Sam Houston State University.

“We’re looking forward to (the area event) and (the students) have been working really hard so they deserve to go,” Graham FFA advisor Hunter Roach said.