Students from Southwestern Community College’s (SWCC’s) agricultural department traveled to Iowa State University in Ames for the Iowa Professional Agricultural Student Organization (PAS) Spring Conference, competing and placing in various ag competitions, on Wednesday and Thursday, Feb. 5 and 6, 2020.
During Wednesday’s activities, the following SWCC students participated in the team career program competitions:
• Amythist Harkins of Leon and Tristan Travis of Creston, both first year SWCC ag students, competed in the equine specialist competition. They were required to prepare a case study discussion with judges, took a written exam, and had an identification portion to their competition. They placed second out of nine teams. Harkins placed fourth individually and Tristan placed ninth individually out of 23 students. As the second place team, they advance to the National PAS Conference.
• Katelyn Belding of Sharpsburg and Tyllar Roesener of Cook, NE, both second year SWCC ag students, competed in the beef specialist competition. They completed a case study, carried out a current event discussion with judges, and took a written exam for their competition. The team placed 10th out of 14 teams.
Thursday the individual career program competitions took place. The following SWCC students competed:
• Belding and Shelby Mathes of Lorimor participated in the animal health/vet tech specialist competition. Their competition consisted of a written exam and visual identification of tools used in the industry. Belding placed fourth out of nine competitors to qualify for National PAS Conference.
• Casey Allen of Afton, second year SWCC ag student, participated in the agriculture education individual career program area. Prior to the contest, she prepared a lesson plan, Powerpoint presentation, and interactive activity on artificial insemination in swine. On the day of the competition, she presented this lesson to a small audience of agriculture students and two judges to be evaluated on the lesson plan and teaching performance. Allen earned first place in the competition and qualified for the National PAS Conference.
• Cole Swenson of Villisca, second year SWCC ag student, served as a voting delegate and gathered ideas for future learning opportunities in the SWCC agriculture program, as well as future competitions for SWCC ag students.
The 2020 National PAS Conference will be held in Minneapolis, MN, from March 17-21. This is the 40-year anniversary for the conference. The theme is Cultivating the Future, they plowed the way for the future today. Additional information is available at https://www.nationalpas.org/.
Pictured above (L to R): Southwestern Community College ag students Katelyn Belding, Amythist Harkins, Tyllar Roesener, and Tristan Travis.