By Jessica Cramer

The Buckeye Central Urban soil judging team swept the State contest on Saturday, Oct. 12, and is now moving on to the National contest.

The BC Urban team, consisting of Sam Robertson, Ray Stahl, Jaret Shook, and Derek Kalb, will be heading to Oklahoma to compete in the National soil judging contest April 29 through May 1, 2014.

“This team has worked extremely hard over the past several weeks to reach a very lofty goal of winning the State Soil Judging Contest,” Mr. Pope said. “Their work has paid off and I am very proud of them.”

BC placed first in the state out of 49 teams, with a team score of 2,500.3. Individually, Kalb placed third, Shook placed seventh, Stahl placed 21, and Robertson placed 28 out of 182 students.

“I’m glad we won state,” Kalb said. “The pits were different than what we have seen before and we used what we knew to help us win.”

The BC FFA is very grateful to everyone who has helped this team reach its goals. The following individuals have been instrumental to the team’s success: Crawford County Soil and Water Conservation Office who administered the Crawford County Contest, Ron McGinnis and Brent Shook who dug practice pits for the team members, Mr. Jeff Glanville of the Ohio Department of NRCS who was the official judge at the Districts and took extra time to work with the team members after the contest, and Mr. Matt Deaton and Mr. Matt Lane of the Ohio Department of NRCS who were the official judges at the State Contest..

The team could not have reached their goals without the support of these individuals along with the staff and administration at Buckeye Central.

“It was a very tough competition,” Shook said. “We studied hard which made us successful.”

This is BC’s third year in a row in finishing top ten at the state contest, and Robertson has been on all three of those teams.

“It was nice to finally win state,” Robertson said. “I am looking forward to going to Oklahoma.”

This is the first time that the BC FFA has made it to a National contest.

“We had fun during the judging and I am looking forward to going to Oklahoma to compete in the National soil judging contest,” Stahl said.