Rural Soil Team
Pictures by John Scott, Historian
RACINE, OHIO: Rural soil judging provides an opportunity for students to study soils through
direct experience in the field. Students learn to describe soil properties, identify different
kinds of soils and associated landscape features, and interpret soil information for
agriculture and other land uses.
The rural soil team roster: Nathaniel Nero, Wyatt Smith, Xander Alkire, Justin
Lawson, Conner Lehew, Noah Heslep, all together this soil team scored a total of 2340
points. For Soils Rural team Nathaniel Nero placed 1st, Wyatt Smith placed 2nd, Xander
Alkire placed 3rd, Justin Lawson placed 5th, Conner Lehew placed 7th, and Noah Heslep
placed 10th in the local contest in Albany Ohio with Meigs, Eastern, Athens, Vinton
county, Federal hocking, and Alexander.
The rural soils team, minus Noah Heslep, made it to the D10 soil contest held at
the Barlow fairgrounds in Washington County, Ohio. Rural team scored a total of 2023
points and ranked 9th at the D10 soils contest.
The Urban land and soil judging CDE is an educational activity designed as a
practical method of teaching students to evaluate land and soil to determine its
potential use for urban, homesite, and other non farm uses.
The Urban soil team roster: Will Smith, John Scott, Corey Seth, Michelle Adkins,
Skyler Allen, and Hannah Turley this soils team scored a total of 2880 points. We all
made it to the D10 soil contest in Washington County except Hannah Turley. Urban
scored a total of 2272 total points and ranked 5th at the D10 Soils Contest, which
qualified this team to move on to the State Competition.
Four out of the six people from this Urban soils team made it to the Ohio State
soil judging contest held on October 14, held in Fairfield County, Ohio. At the state
contest they scored a total of 2194 points and ranked 24 out of 43 at this contest. Our
Racine Southern Urban soils team ranked 24th in the State out of the 329 total FFA
chapters. We are very proud of them for making it this far.
The top four FFA members from Meigs County at the local soils contest were invited to the 79th Annual Soils Banquet held at the Blakeslee Center in Middleport, Ohio. They were recognized individually and as a team, the top three received monetary prizes and the team received a plaque that will be displayed at the school for years to come. The top four from the Urban team were John Scott, Will Smith, Corey Seth, and Michelle Adkins. The top four from the Rural team were Wyatt Smith, Nathanial Nero, Justin Lawson, and Xander Alkire.
Overall we had a great year with all three contests and hopefully we can do better next year and have even more fun than what we had this year. We will continue to learn how to get better at some of the things that our soils teams struggled on to get better for next year's contest and hopefully make it past state soils.
Picture of both teams from banquet Urban team on the left ( left to right Jenna Meeks, Corey Seth, John Scott, Michelle Adkins, Will Smith, and Jessie Donohue)
Rural team on the right ( left to right Jenna Meeks Justin Lawson, Nathaniel Nero, Wyatt Smith, and Jessie Donohue)