By Paul Heydinger

On Monday, May 4, the Buckeye Central Soil Judging Team packed their bags and headed to Oklahoma City for the National Soil Judging Contest.

The team consists of seniors Austin Wurm, Seth Ollis, Peter Keller, Paul Heydinger, and BC FFA adviser Tyler Pope.

After placing 3rd in the state, the team qualified to compete in the Homesite Evaluation Contest at the National Soil Judging Contest.

The trip started off by flying from Cleveland to Dallas, Texas on Monday morning. After the flight, the team toured the Texas Motor Speedway then traveled to Oklahoma City. After getting settled in at their hotel, they went to an Oklahoma City Dodgers minor league baseball game.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the team woke up bright and early to study the diverse soil in Oklahoma for about four hours.

On Tuesday afternoon, the team toured the Express Cattle Ranch. The Express Cattle Ranch is a large ranch throughout Oklahoma that raises beef cattle and Clydesdales.

The contest was held on Thursday morning. Each member judged four soil pits and evaluated the sites for septic systems, lawns, gardens, foundations for buildings, and sewage lagoons.  The characteristics of the soil judged were texture, permeability, depth, slope, erosion, surface runoff, shrink/swell, seasonal high water table, and flooding.

Thursday evening the team went to the National Cowboy & Western Museum to attend the awards banquet.

The BC FFA soils team finished 31st out of 52 teams. Ollis led the team placing 49th. Wurm placed 87th.  Heydinger placed 152nd and Keller placed 163rd. Pope also competed in the Adult Homesite Competition and placed 21st.

On Friday, the team packed up and traveled back to Dallas to board the plane and head home.

“National Soil Judging was a great experience and a fun trip,” Wurm said. “We did pretty well in the competition and improved from last year’s team. We got to see parts of Oklahoma and Texas, and even got to experience tornado weather. One the best parts of the trip was all the great southern food we got to eat! The trip will always be a great memory for all of us.”