Whitko FFA Team Wins State Meats Event
News Release
SOUTH WHITLEY — The Whitko FFA Meats Team recently won the State FFA Meats Evaluation & Technology Career Development Event. The event was held at Danville on Saturday, Sept. 26.
The team consisted of Jordyn Leininger, Katie Sharp, Hailey Arnold and Maggie Wolf. They would normally advance to compete for national honors at the National FFA Convention in Indianapolis in October, but the National
FFA canceled all national competition in August.
The Meats Evaluation & Technology Career Development Event develops the abilities of students to evaluate meat animal products in order to optimize economic returns to producers and industry as well as to meet the needs of consumers. The event motivates students to become knowledgeable consumers of meat and meat animal products. Participants take a written examination, identify retail cuts, complete a meat formulation problem and evaluate six placing classes. They were asked questions on two of those classes.
Whitko FFA was first overall and Heritage FFA was second, followed by Danville FFA and Indian Creek, third and fourth place, respectfully. Individually Leininger was second overall, Sharp was fifth and Arnold was eighth.
Coach of the team is Roger K. Carr, Whitko agriculture teacher and FFA advisor. This is his 28th state champion meat team he has coached, over 37 years.
“I’m very proud to be back at Whitko and inspiring young people. It’s been over six months since competing in any competition due to COVID-19,” he said. “This group was fun to coach and considering they’ve never competed in meats judging I’m very happy with the success they earned. They worked hard, set high goals and most importantly they expected a lot from themselves. There was no awards program due to the coronavirus and on the way home hearing the words ‘we won’ was awesome. Students were very excited and that was very special.”
Whitko also had the sixth place team in the state with members consisting of Lexi Funnel, Robert Werstler, Emma Jackson and Brianna Deaton.