Many people know of the club at Wenatchee High School, FFA. There are meetings, fundraisers, and even opportunities to show at the county fair. However, there are many other activities that are a part of FFA that are lesser known to the students of WHS. There are teams that specialize in different agricultural practices. Some of these teams include tractor driving, apple judging, poultry judging, dairy judging, and livestock judging.
The livestock team in particular has attended four competitions this year, one at Waterville fair, Chelan County fair, Othello fair and the Central Washington fair. Every contest is the generally the same. There are usually four to six classes of animals, five in each class, consisting of goat, sheep, swine and cattle. The competitors then rank the animals one to five on a sheet of paper and the papers are then graded.
The livestock team is led by AG teacher and FFA advisor, Jenaia Johnson.
“This is my second year as an advisor with Wenatchee FFA and my first year running a livestock team. Livestock Judging is about appreciating different species of livestock and their production through paying attention to detail, critically thinking about different classes of animals whether its market or breeding and building a confidence in decision making, paying attention to detail and public speaking,” said Johnson.
There are many benefits of being involved in school activities, FFA in particular has benefits that are applicable to the career world. FFA teaches students about the past, present and future of agriculture, heading to the importance of the industry.
“Only about two% of the people in the U.S work on farms that produce food for our population. We are seeing fewer family owned farms and more large, corporate farms, which can bring issues like labor shortages and market access. For the livestock industry in general, I think it is important ot support small businesses and this includes local farms to get your food from, to support more community agriculture and farm-to-table practices. These are things I want my team and my animal science classes to take away even if they don’t want to go into agricultural careers to be able to think critically about where our food comes from, how the industry adapts to changes, and why supporting agriculture matters,” said Johnson.
Learning is a huge part of FFA, especially in regards to livestock.
“I enjoy learning about the different parts of livestock judging and how to understand if an animal is healthy and would be a good production animal or not. I also really enjoy all the people in the livestock team they make showing up to practices and competitions a lot of fun,” said Lindsay Sutton. A member of the livestock team and senior at WHS.
While learning is a big part of the livestock team, a good team environment is an important part of any group. When challenges arise, it is important to deploy strategies to ensure that the team stays strong.
“ I think spending two fairs (across five days each) in the poultry barn really helped us form a bond as we spent long hours together learning fair etiquette and showmanship and making sure our area was swept clean has helped us to foster a positive and productive work environment,” said Johnson.
“I think as a team we have already shown a lot of growth in our understanding of livestock and it seems there is a lot more people interested in joining the group. I feel like if people keep showing up to practices we could do really good at the final competition this spring and maybe even place,” said Sutton.
Challenges, however, are an unfortunate part of any team.
“Our biggest challenge is that livestock is not our previous knowledge or something that I or my team has grown up with, but I do have a couple of students who are looking to become veterinarians so this will be good knowledge and resume building for them for vet school. Right now, our weakest link, I think, would be sheep; its a species we haven’t really had much exposure to so we are having to practice extra,” said Johnson.
Even though the team has participated in multiple competitions, everyone has to start somewhere. It is with Johnson’s passion for leadership and agriculture that this team has had its start.
“I am super thankful for a group of girls (Lindsay Sutton, Penelope Moore, Ruby Perdomo and Jasmine Espinosa) who totally jumped in during the fair season, having never shown an animal before and just did a great job across both fairs and improved so much with their small animals in showing and knowledge. I kind of talked them into doing livestock, as at Waterville Fair, we had a practice contest, and they were the only team that participated from Wenatchee. Even though they might not have scored high that day, we had fun and have been doing more contests at other fairs such as Othello and Yakima,” said Johnson.
The future of the team is looking bright. At the most recent competition at the Central Washington fair, Liam Sullivan tied for fifth place and Maddie Moore tied for eighth place.
“I am excited for my team to build new skills and knowledge, yes, general knowledge about animals, but hopefully gain confidence in public speaking, leadership and working as a team,” said Johnson.
If you are interested in joining the livestock team, you can email Mrs. Johnson or any of the other FFA advisors. Meetings take place every Wednesday at lunch in John
