Orange County 4-H Members
On Saturday, October 12, the Georgia National Fair hosted this year’s Peach State Livestock Judging Contest at the Georgia National Fairgrounds & Agricenter in Perry, Ga.
This contest, hosted by Georgia National Livestock Shows, annually brings together youth and collegiate teams from across the Southeast for a day of livestock judging before national contest season begins.
Florida was represented this year by your current Florida 4-H state champion and reserve champion teams, and by your current Florida FFA state champion team.
Putnam County 4-H, your current state champion 4-H team, competed with a team that included Clayton Brauman, Jarrett Kelley and Emily Lands.
As a team, they brought home the championship as the winning team in the senior division, and also placed as the high team in swine and reasons, second in sheep and goats, and fourth in cattle.
Individually, Brauman placed as the high individual overall for the contest, and as the high individual in swine, and fourth in reasons and in sheep and goats. Kelley placed as the third high individual overall, fourth in swine and fifth in reasons, and Lands placed ninth overall individually, third in reasons, and eighth in both the cattle and swine divisions.
Orange County 4-H, your current reserve state champion team, was represented by teams of Bailey Lavender, Connor Ward, Bradley Nelson and Andrea Jimenez, and Kylie Ward, CJ Nelson and Karli West in the senior division, and by Garrett Hebert as an individual in the junior division. (Pictured)
Lavender, Connor Ward, Bradley Nelson and Jimenez’s team placed as the overall high team in cattle, third in reasons, seventh in sheep and goats, and as the fifth high team overall, while Kylie Ward, CJ Nelson and West’s team placed third in the cattle division.
Individually, Lavender placed first in reasons, eighth in sheep and goats, and as the tenth high individual overall, Connor Ward placed fourth in cattle and eleventh overall, Kylie Ward placed third in swine and fourteenth overall, and Nelson placed seventh in cattle and sixteenth overall.
Garrett Hebert also placed fourth in cattle and as the seventh high individual overall in the junior division representing Orange County.
Representing Hardee SR FFA, your current state champion FFA team, was Jake Henderson, Kipp Cooper, Emery Smith and Hunter Sellers.
As a team, they placed third overall in the senior division, and fourth in swine, fifth in cattle, and sixth in both sheep and goats and reasons. Individually, Henderson placed eighth overall, and Cooper placed seventh in sheep and goats and thirteenth overall.
A total of 18 teams and 72 individuals competed in the senior division in this year’s contest. The contest is sponsored by Godfrey’s Feed.
Congratulations to each of these teams on their continued accomplishments, and best of luck to Putnam County and Hardee SR as they advance to the national 4-H and FFA events in November, and to Orange County to the National Western in January.
Livestock judging is an event designed to test the evaluation and decision making skills of students through evaluating market and breeding beef cattle, swine, sheep and meat goats as well as the defense of their placings via oral reasons. For more information, visit www.georgianationalfair.com.
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(Photo from Orange County 4-H)