Judging Cows ~ California FFA State Finals

picture courtesy Hoards Dairyman

This past weekend the California FFA State Finals were held at California Polytechnic State University {Cal Poly} in San Luis Obispo.  Dominic and our friend Frank Gambonini coach the Petaluma Dairy Judging team and headed down to San Luis Obispo Friday.

The team of four consists of,  high school freshman; Alex Gambonini, junior; Frankie Gambonini, senior; Jessie Jones and junior; Regina Pozzi.

Competing in dairy judging allows kids to build their dairy knowledge at the same time as allowing them to develop important life skills such as public speaking, critical thinking, decision making, observation and self confidence.

Judging dairy cattle is a comparative evaluation of cattle in which animals are ranked based on their
closeness to "ideal" dairy conformation. Desirable dairy conformation involves functional traits associated with high milk production over a long, trouble free productive life.  The teams must judge different sets of four cows and heifers, place them in order 1-4 and give their set of reasons to back up their placement of the animals.

Results of the top four teams for 2012:

High Teams:
1st Petaluma FFA 1374 points
2nd Los Banos FFA 1368 points
3rd Atwater - Buhach Colony FFA 1361 points
4th Modesto FFA 1332 points

Congratulations to our 1st place Petaluma team.....each and every one of you is a true inspiration and fantastic role model to all kids and most especially to our up and coming young Ag kids.  I'm SO proud of you girls!  

Next stop Louisville, Kentucky for Nationals!

Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to leave a comment. I love to hear from you! Have a fantastic day!
 
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Ag in the {new} Classroom

Yesterday we attended the Petaluma High School Agriculture Department Open House to celebrate the opening of the newly renovated and upgraded Agriscience classroom.

Petaluma Mayor, Pamela Torliatt along with Petaluma's Ag Advisor, Kim Arntz and newly hired Ag teacher, Mike Touchstone begin the ribbon cutting ceremony just outside the renovated classroom.

Snip.

At one time, this classroom was the boy's gym locker room.

My assistant, Bryce, helping me by taking additional photos.

Mayor Torliatt also presented Petaluma FFA's International Champion Dairy Judging Team with a certificate from Senator Mark Leno commending them on their accomplishment.

You can read all about their journey in one of my previous posts titled, "The Scotland Adventure".

Sam Cheda, Rocco Cunningham, Mandy Brazil, Kelli Carstensen & Mayor Torliatt

You can't have an Ag open house {or any open house} without food and there was plenty of that!

Delicious sausage.

A platter of local cheeses from the Petaluma Creamery.

For some reason I ended up with about 100 photos of brownies.

Also in attendance was David Rabbitt, who is currently running for Sonoma County Supervisor.

This is the high school that both Dominic and I attended and it's always fun to go back for a visit to see what changes have taken place.

These are the type of the things students can learn to build in an Ag class and oh, how I would like to have this BBQ!  Maybe Bryce will build one for me in 10 years when he's in high school.....let's hope he'll have the opportunity if he so desires and these Ag classes will still be around at that time. 

Happy Monday!

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