By MAGGIE MCMURRAY
Moapa Valley Progress
For the first time in three decades a team from Moapa Valley will be representing the state of Nevada in the FFA livestock judging event at the FFA National Convention to be held later this year in Indianapolis, IN.
The Moapa Valley team took first place last week at the state contest which was held in conjunction with the Clark County Fair.
The local FFA judging team; consisting of Shyanne Matheson, Ryan McMurray, Avery Stratton, and Mackenzie Kephart; put together a total team score of 2223. That was enough to put them on top in the state.
This year’s second place team was from Ruby Mountain with a score of 2084, followed by Carson Valley with a score of 2029. A total of 12 teams attended this year’s contest at the fair.
Local team members also placed well individually, although awards are only given to the top three places. Matheson had an overall individual score of 501, which put her in fourth place. She was closely followed by McMurray in 5th place with a score of 497, and Stratton in 8th place with a score of 480. Kephart rounded out the team with a 14th place finish and a score of 441. There was a total of 39 contestants in the event.
Livestock judging is the only state FFA event held in Moapa Valley. Until a few years ago, the contest was held in Reno in conjunction with the rest of the events at the annual state FFA convention. It was moved to Moapa Valley because of the opportunity to review high quality livestock at the Junior Livestock Show during the Fair.
“It was moved here because the state FFA staff was impressed with the quality of livestock at the Clark County Fair, which is similar to what FFA students see at the national contest in Indiana,” said Denise O’Toole, Moapa Valley FFA advisor.
Livestock judging is extremely popular all over the nation with many colleges and universities offering scholarships to entice good livestock judges onto their school judging teams. College teams often travel all over the United States and frequently to other countries.
It is a very competitive event as well as a grueling one, typically lasting six hours or more. In the event held at Moapa Valley participants spend many hours completing the different sections of the contest.
Individuals begin the contest by taking a written exam that tests their knowledge of livestock in general, including specific questions about the different species of livestock they will see.
Students are then placed into groups that rotate through eight different classes of livestock. Classes are made up of four individuals of the same specie of animal.
Contestants rank the animals from first best to fourth best in the way they think is correct. They also have to answer questions about some of the classes of animals and give memorized oral presentations to judges on some of the classes, explaining and defending exactly why they placed the classes as they did.
This year teams judged eight classes of livestock in addition to their questions class. Theclasses were market hogs, breeding gilts, market steers, breeding ewes, market lambs, market goats, and heifers. The kids also judged a keep/cull class where they were given the history of four animals and decided if that animal should theoretically be kept or culled from the herd from a production standpoint.
O’Toole was pleased with her team’s performance. She said that the team had prepared heavily on the quality of their oral reasons. This is the difficult area where the contest is often won or lost, she said.
“I’m proud of the team and the time they devoted to studying and coming to practices,” O’Toole said. “The team is excited to represent Nevada judging livestock in Indiana this fall.”
According to O’Toole, the last time a livestock judging team from Moapa Valley won the state title and represented Nevada at the national level was in 1989. That team consisted of Angie Rawson, Missy Haworth, Rhonda McCauley, and David Jensen, with Nathan Marshall as an alternate.
