Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
PORTALES — Eight Portales High students are getting set for the national FFA stage.
Portales High brought five teams to the state FFA competition two weekends ago, and when all was said and done it had two of those teams make nationals with another placing second in state.
The PHS pasture and range and floriculture teams placed first in state and earned a national invite, while the entomology team finished second in state.
The pasture and range team heads to Oklahoma City April 30-May 2, while the floriculture team gets a little more time to prepare with nationals held Oct. 30-Nov. 2 in Indianapolis.
The pasture and range team is comprised of juniors Trevor Rawdon, Gunnar Standifer and Madisyn Courtney and eighth-grader Travin Price.
“We’re really excited to be going,” Rawdon said. “This is our first year with all of us together judging pasture and range. For a new team to win state it’s very exciting.”
In the pasture and range competition, teams are given 25 plants to identify and are provided a plant list. They also have to look at three sites, and give each a habitat rating for how well it would suit a herd of beef cattle. After that, Rawdon said, the team does what is called a similarity index on the sites, comparing the field compositions today to how they would have been in prior decades.
The biggest obstacle for the team is that it will literally be on unfamiliar turf, and will compete against teams in Oklahoma and Texas more familiar with the local plants. He noted finals were in Oklahoma last year as well, and the top five teams were all from Texas.
“We’re hoping for the best but we’re going to prepare for the worst,” Rawdon said. “Oklahoma is very different from New Mexico.”
The floriculture team has a different set of challenges. The event is basically the study of flowers and how to plant them and care for them.
The team is comprised of juniors Abi Cameron, Alyssa McAlister and Emily Newberry and sophomore Rylie Courtney.
“We’re super excited,” Cameron said. “This is the first time in a long time, if not ever, that a Portales floriculture team will go to finals. We’re ready to start preparing and fundraising.”
In the state competition, the team did a group activity, followed by individual tests in flower arrangement, one-on-one selling, job interview and tool/plant identification. The top individual score is 600, and the top three scorers make up a team score with the fourth score eliminated. Portales scored 1,680 points of a possible 1,800.
Cameron, who also plays volleyball and softball for Portales, said she never envisioned juggling athletics, academics and FFA.
“My friends barely talked me into joining FFA,” Cameron said. “After I joined it and started studying, I loved it so much. I’ve started growing flowers at my house. You have this big window as soon as you walk in, and there are 23 plants in this one area. I love being able to take care of them and watch them grow. It also gives me a lot to talk about with both of my grandmothers, who have always been big with flowers.”
The entomology team scored 1,092 of a possible 1,200 points to finish second. The competition consists of two tests — an identification test of 30 random insects out of 110 common to the state, and a pesticide application test with 50 questions. The insect questions are worth up to 10 points each depending on depth of identification, and the pesticide questions are two points apiece.
The top three scores combine for the team score.
“I’m already looking forward to next year; it was really exciting,” sophomore entomology team member Traise Cain said.
