FFA Carries Home the Gold from the Classic
by Haiden Magnussen
The Pierce FFA chapter traveled to Kearney on Wednesday, February 22, to compete in the annual Cattlemen's Classic FFA event and brought home first place.
The FFA took seven members: Alexis Sporleder, Bode Hoffmann, Brielle Unseld, Ella Gaes, Haiden Magnussen, Isabelle Skrdla, and Zaylah Pfanstiel. Presenting a speech for the Pierce FFA were Unseld, Gaes and Magnussen.
The Nebraska Cattlemen’s Classic is a week-long event consisting of different competitions and cattle shows. In this competition, FFA members were given a presentation topic at 8:45 a.m. The question given to the members this year was, “What are the challenges facing the agriculture labor force, and what are farmers and ranchers doing to offset these labor shortages?” Members then had until 12:30 p.m. to write and give a 3-5 minute speech on this topic. Teams consisted of 2-4 members.
Talking to Gaes, she mentions, “I am super proud of how our team did at the Nebraska Cattlemen’s Classic. It’s an honor to keep the streak going for winning first, and I wouldn’t have wanted to do it with any other group. Overall, the whole experience was super cool.”
After talking with various farmers, ranchers, and businesses, the FFA had their speech written and were ready to present. Throughout the event, members could not use their phones to find out the answer to the question.
Pierce came away with the first-place prize and split a $1,000 scholarship between Unseld, Gaes, and Magnussen.
FFA advisor Matthew Neal says, “This is one of my favorite contests because it actually requires students to engage with industry professionals to obtain the information to write their speech. I’m really proud of the way that they prepared and the mindset they had to give the speech.
