East Knox FFA places 18th in state urban soils competition

Recently, the East Knox FFA Urban Soils Career Development Event team placed 18th in the state event held Oct. 11 in Morrow County at the Headwaters Education Center on Home Road north of Mt. Gilead. 

Urban team members were sophomore Alexia Wine and freshmen Brent Link, Noah Beckley, and McKenzie Schwartz. Link finished as the 33rd-place individual in the state, with Wine placing 35th, Beckley finishing 92nd, and Schwartz placing 125th out of 170 competitors from across Ohio.

East Knox earned a berth in the state urban contest after placing fourth out of 15 teams in the District 7 contest conducted earlier in Fairfield County near Rushville. The top five teams from each of the state’s 10 FFA districts qualify for the state, making a field of fifty teams. Individually in the district event, Wine placed seventh, Beckley finished 12th, Schwartz placed 13th, Link was 22nd and Kelsey Jensen finished 28th out of 71 competitors.

Prior to the district contest, East Knox FFA placed second in the county event sponsored by the Knox County Soil and Water Conservation District and held at the Magers Farm north of Howard off Skyline Drive. 

In the urban soil evaluation event, members determine soil slope, landform, flooding hazard, stability, texture at three different levels, structure in the subsoil, drainage class, depth to restrictive features, and depth to bedrock. This information is used to make recommendations to use the site for houses with basements; sewage treatment systems; driveways and roads; and lawns, gardens, and landscaping. Teams also take a written test over soils and find soil information from the web soil survey.

The top five teams in the State Urban Soils Career Development Event represent Ohio each May at the National Land and Range Contest in Oklahoma. Although East Knox did not qualify for the national contest this year, the chapter has placed in the top 10 in the state 38 out of the past 43 years. East Knox FFA also has been in the national contest 29 times in the past 37 years (the most of any FFA in Ohio).