HOWARD — The East Knox FFA recently represented the state of Ohio and competed in the National FFA Milk Quality & Products Career Development Event at the Indiana State Fairgrounds.
The event was part of the 97th National FFA Convention in Indianapolis on Oct. 23 to 26.
Dylan Springer, Hayden Baker, Aiden Kapper, and Jesse Wolford placed 15th out of a field of 41 teams from across the United States with a team rating of Silver (just two places from receiving a Gold).
The top 13 teams in the nation received a Gold rating. The next 17 teams finished with a Silver ranking. The final 11 teams received Bronze ratings.
Individually, each student is rated Gold, Silver, or Bronze with Springer receiving a Gold, placing 9th overall out of 164 contestants. He earned a $900 scholarship for placing in the Top 10.
Hayden Baker finished 56th rating Silver. Aiden Kapper placed 69th rating Silver. Jesse Wolford was 89th with a Silver rating.
The team received a plaque for its placing. Springer received a Gold medal. Baker, Kapper, and Wolford each received a Silver medal for their individual national ranking at the awards banquet on Friday at the Indianapolis Convention Center.
Springer also was recognized on-stage during the sixth session on Friday evening and received a National Top-10 medal and a scholarship for $900. Springer was also recognized as third-place individual in the cheese category with a score of 99 out of 100.
The team advanced to the national contest after placing first in the State FFA Milk Quality & Products Career Development Event at The Ohio Exposition Center in Columbus on March 23.
Individually at the state event, Springer finished first, Kapper finished second, Wolford placed eighth, and Baker placed 15th out of 137 competitors. The top four scores make up the team score.
The National Milk Quality and Products event is an educational activity designed as a practical method of teaching students to perform hands-on skills and to identify various dairy products and quality problems associated with milk.
In the individual events, students took milk marketing and production tests, completed a problem solving practicum, performed California Mastitis Tests, identified cheeses and completed a matrix based on six characteristics of each cheese, tasted milk samples for off-flavors and their intensity, and determined dairy or nondairy and fat levels of product samples.
The team members also completed a team activity where they had to determine standard plate count and preliminary incubation count by determining the number of bacteria colonies on petrifilm, determine somatic cell count, use a SNAP test kit to determine a positive or negative antibiotic test, complete a swab test, and then present findings to a panel of judges based on five months of milk data.
The National Milk Quality and Products Career Development Event is sponsored by Cargill, Kerry, Culver’s, Hormel Foods, and US POULTRY with In-Kind donors Bruens Bros Processing Equipment, Nelson Jameson, Inc., Prairie Farms Dairy, Inc., and Purdue University.
This is the fourth time since 2017 that an East Knox FFA Milk Quality & Products team has represented Ohio at the National event.
The Chapter’s other National-level competition in MQP came from placing second in the state in 1997, 2022, and 2023 when they represented Ohio at the Eastern States Exposition in Massachusetts.