FFA Forestry Contest

Mrs. TBS and I spent all day Saturday in Carbondale, IL at the SIU campus with FFA students at the state forestry contest. We took two students from our neighborhood who represented Wayne City High School. A team is supposed to have five individuals, but even with the short team Wayne City did not place last, so our kids did pretty well.

Billy is hunkering down to measure an azimuth, while a contestant from Jerseyville is recording her information.

Pacing between points. Close does count in this event; students measure the distance between points by pacing to the nearest foot, and the results show that most contestants had practiced for this.

Equipment identification is an event that every student should score 100%, but most of them don't. They have the list ahead of time and can look up all the items in catalogs or online.

This surveyor's chain is a genuine antique.

The written map test was tough for high school students; no multiple choice here.

There were twenty five trees to identify, and there was not much time to think. This old post oak was a tough one for northern Illinois students.

This girl had excellent technique with her Biltmore stick. Note how her eye is on the left side of her stick as she places it against the tree.

As soon as she has the stick placed properly her eye switches to the right to read the diameter.

Billy and the Jerseyville girl measure the merchantable length of a tree.

Emily is dialing in her azimuth as she sights on the next pin.

Take your compass reading and....

pace off the distance. It's nice when you don't have to split a step.

Here are a couple of contestants playing 'Wilson' with me.

This was a great day, and it was good for these students to see the campus and meet some of the forestry faculty and students at SIU.