Colby FFA sends four students to nationals
By Nathaniel Underwood
Four members of the Colby FFA branch competed at the 97th FFA National Convention & Expo in Indianapolis that was held from Oct. 23 through Oct. 26. The quartet of Breanne Zawislan, Jasmyn Heeg, Ella Raatz and Jenelle Ertl placed 10th out of 43 teams as they represented Wisconsin in the Dairy Cattle Evaluation and Management event at the convention. They were also honored as a gold ranked team for their performance on the national stage.
The impressive performance in Indianapolis was the culmination of a three year long journey. The recently graduated Zawislan and Heeg and seniors Raatz and Ertl have been competing together as a team in the Dairy Cattle Evaluation and Management Career Development Event (CDE) since 2022. While the group had made it through their regional and competed at the state level several times before, they broke through with a first place finish in April’s state competition, where they outpaced the second place team by 49 points. Only the top team in each CDE advances on to compete at the national convention, and with the convincing win, the four would go on to represent Wisconsin in the event in Indianapolis.
In the Dairy Cattle Evaluation and Management CDE, competitors are asked to evaluate and judge six different classes of dairy cows and then provide oral reasonings behind their evaluations for three of those classes, both of which are judged. They then must take a 50-question multiple choice test based on their knowledge of dairy management practices.
At the national level, there is an additional task in which the group is given a dairy farm management scenario in which each team must work together over 40 minutes to identify problems with the scenario farm, come up with solutions to those issues and then deliver a presentation to a pair of judges as if they were consultants advising the owners of the farm.
While the final task was something new for Colby’s team, who had only had to do the first three parts in their prior regional and state competitions, their preparation and practice before the event allowed them to tackle the challenge head on.
“We work on our oral reasons, how to present those better,” Raatz said and she explained the amount of work that goes into preparing for the competition. “Before Breanne and Jazmyn graduated we would have practices in [the ag room] and just talk through classes of dairy cattle and looking over past tests to refresh our knowledge.”
Online resources allowed the team to simulate evaluations and then discuss their judgements and oral reasons among themselves before listening to the actual oral reasons given for those events. Going over scenarios from past years for the team activity exclusive to the national convention also helped the team prepare.
“Teri Raatz came in a lot to work with them and I know that Jay Heeg was also working with them, especially on the facilities stuff,” FFA advisor Kiersten Rogowski said.
They also had other experiences to lean on. In addition to their three years competing as a team in FFA, both Raatz and Ertl had engaged in dairy cattle judging through 4-H for years.
All of that hard work and dedication came to a head at the national convention. The team of four competed over two days, taking on the individual activities on the first day before coming together for the team activity on the second day.
While the girls had experienced high levels of competition at the state level in Madison, the aura of the national convention still drew awe and nerves alike.
“It was definitely different,” Raatz said of the experience. “We were all in our official dress, in our blue jackets, and just looking at everybody and realizing, ‘oh it’s not just by city in Wisconsin, it’s by state.’ So seeing teams from Minnesota, Florida and even Puerto Rico were there; that was an eyeopener.”
“I told the girls on the way down, ‘you guys are the only ones from the state, this is a big deal,’ and I think [when they realized that], that was pretty cool for them too,” Rogowski noted.
“It was a bit more stressful too,” Ertl added. “It was like ‘oh my gosh, this is the last time I’m going to be doing this’ and that it was our last time together as a team.”
The fact that this was indeed going to be the final time the four would be able to compete in this event together was certainly not lost on them. That they were able to make it to the national stage together in their final opportunity made the trip all the better.
After all was said and done, the team placed 10th overall, with Zawislan taking 25th, Raatz 36th, Heeg 48th and Ertl 124th as individuals. Zawislan, Raatz and Heeg earned gold rankings and Ertl grabbed a bronze ranking while the team as a whole earned a gold ranking.
“I was so proud,” Raatz said. “I was like ‘we finally did it.’ My goal was top 10 for us and during the awards banquet, seeing our name up on the screen in 10th place was like ‘we finally did it.’” “It was pretty cool,” Ertl said. “I feel like sometimes I bring the team down, because I’m the lowest one, but also it’s like, I didn’t take last. I was still above 50 people, I did score points, I did help the team. So it was pretty cool to be 10th in the nation.”
“It was really cool to see them all do very well there and the girls were really excited,” Rogowski added. “I know that at first when they were announced as being 10th, they were like ‘oh that wasn’t good enough, we wanted to do better.’ But I just reminded the girls that they were top ten in the nation. That’s still a really huge accomplishment. And I think they were proud of that overall and it was cool to have them acknowledged.”
MAKING THE GRADE AT NATIONALS - Ella Raatz, Jazmyn Heeg, Breanne Zawislan and Jenelle Ertl pose with their plaque for earning gold ranking status as a team in the Dairy Cattle Evaluation and Management CDE at the FFA National Convention & Expo in Indianapolis. The team earned 10th out of 43 teams.
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