Imperial FFA Places Range Judging Team in Top 10 at State

On September 24th , Imperial FFA Range judging teams competed at the State Range Judging competition in Keya Paha county.  Imperial fielded one senior team and two junior teams.
The Jr. Range Team of Hayden Worth, Bennet Kuenning Aidan Vlasin and Dietrich Pursley placed 6th out of 58 teams competing. Individuals placing in the top 25%  were Worth at 13th, Kuenning 21st, Vlasin 33rd and Pursley 49th. The team of Luke Kuenning, Levy Jurado, Sawyer Sauder and Truman Olsen placed 20th overall.  There were a total of 252 individuals in the junior division.
The Sr. Range team of Jayme Gittlein, Odessa Zadina, Ali Reeves and Lukas Fries placed 14th out of 38 teams. Individually, no one made the top 25% However Gittlein missed that cut by one point.  There were a total of 200 individuals in this division.
“The state competition was tough, especially the range sites.  These may have been some of the most challenging sites to evaluate that I have seen in all my years of coaching range judging. Some of the best coaches missed at least one site.  It adds to the degree of difficulty when you are judging in another area of the state.  The soils look different, and there are plants we don’t have in Chase County.  However, we made a few mistakes on plants and the ranch map evaluation that we shouldn’t have which kept us from placing higher.  I would also like to thank Lance Kuenning for helping with the team and driving for us this year,” said Vlasin.
Imperial FFA now looks forward to other the many other competitions in FFA which begin in November.