From left, Kevin Schlipf, Jared Templin, Mason Germonprez and Conner Sausaman make up a soils judging team qualifying for the national competition in Oklahoma. Also shown on the right is student Shelby Swartz, who was invited to attend the competition. Sarah Harden was also invited but is not pictured.
A few Wawasee High School students will literally be crawling into a hole, but it’s not because of anything they’ve done wrong. Instead, it’s part of the National Land Judging Contest May 5-7 in Oklahoma City, Okla.
Four Wawasee students — Mason Germonprez, senior, Kevin Schlipf, senior, Conner Sausaman, junior, and Jared Templin, junior, make up an FFA soils judging team that finished third out of 42 teams at the state contest in Corydon. Their third place finish qualified them for the national contest.
The team is busy preparing for the national contest by looking at different soil textures, filling out their entry card and memorizing the contest rules. They are learning a different set of rules than were used at the state contest.
When the contest starts, each of the four students will be going down into a hole and judging the type of soil and its texture around the hole, drainage and the slope of the land around the hole, erosion and other factors. Then the students will be scored on how well they do.
Coaches for the soils judging team are Mariah Roberts and Randy Warren. Students Shelby Swartz and Sarah Harden, both seniors, were invited to attend the national competition though they were on a separate soils judging team.