UWRF hosts 57 different schools for annual agriculture competition day

Over 700 middle and high school students attended UWRF’s annual Agricultural Technology Contest (Ag Tech Day) on April 2.

Ag Tech Day is an opportunity for middle and high school students to participate in 15 agriculture based competitions. UWRF has hosted this event for about 61 years; it has become a tradition of sorts for the campus and everyone involved. In order to have this large scale event run smoothly there is a coordinator and assistant coordinator working tirelessly. 

Kendra Jentz, this year's assistant coordinator for Ag Tech Day spoke more about the leg work to get this event off the ground.

“There is a lot of different logistics, whether that’s making sure that we are working with the chairs which are a lot of time faculty members of CAFES to put on the contests, whether that’s milk quality and products to agronomy or that is planning the logistics, such as meals and working with Chartwells and the catering service to make sure that everyone is able to get fed.”

Jentz also worked with over 80 volunteers to make sure that those who wanted to be involved in the certain contests could be.

Fifty-seven different schools from both Wisconsin and Minnesota sent their teams to UWRF.

Jentz mentioned many benefits for sending students to Ag Tech Day stating, “It allows students to gain those life long skills that are going to help them for the future and is also going to allow them to explore career options. Additionally it is a great opportunity for students to come to see our campus.”

After competing at Ag Tech Day students have the opportunity to move on to state and the top team there moves on to nationals. Those are FFA’s standards but the UWRF Ag Tech Team also has awards that they give out as well. 

“Here at our campus, for each contest, we have awards for the team that placed first as well as the individual that placed first. We also do an award of excellence which is the award that is given to the school that placed highest in the most contests out of 7 of them that we choose,” stated Jentz.

This event was made possible by everyone who volunteered. Jentz expressed her gratitude towards everyone saying “Thank you for everyone who helped make it possible, whether that was the students who helped volunteer their time beforehand to make sure the folders were stuffed, the students that volunteered in the 15 different contests during that day, to the faculty members that gave up time beforehand to help plan the contests, to the individuals to um the people who put on the contests and then also Dr. Buttles, Ethan, and Cody for helping also put on the contest, and also the state officers.”