Four Flandreau High School FFA senior students won state awards recently with one student claiming a state officer position.

Grady Gullickson is the incoming treasurer for the state, while Blake Kontz was among the top four for the Star Farmer award, and Ben Hobbie finished in the top four for Star Agri-Business. Clint VanDerVliet earned third place in the state for his swine production project.

This is the first year the Flandreau chapter has had a state officer since Andrea Klein was state secretary in 2000-01.

The four Flandreau senior students have help build their school’s program since middle school and have held officer positions throughout high school. When they started as younger students, a group of seniors told them the chapter might not make it. They set out to prove them wrong, said Kontz, who is also the chapter president and a winner of many FFA awards during his time as a member. “I told myself it’s not going to be like that,” he said.

Now a new group, including some siblings of this year’s seniors, will fill those positions, he said.

“When we leave this year, it’ll kind of be the same way. We have a bunch of young kids that will have to take over,” Kontz said.

The FFA chapter will host its annual banquet 6:30 p.m. Friday in the elementary commons. The event includes a free pork dinner, award presentations and a dessert and pie auction.

Here is a look at the four top state award winners.

Grady Gullickson

After three days of interviews at the state FFA convention at South Dakota State University, Gullickson, 17, was chosen as one of six state officers out of 15 finalists. The one-year position means intense involvement at SDSU next year, where he will be attending school for animal science and agri-business.

Blake Kontz

Kontz’s 38 head of cow-calf pairs, 40 feeder cattle and 18 acres of rented, tillable land earned him a finalist for the Star Farmer award, an honor he has dreamed of achieving since starting the project as a freshman.

Ben Hobbie

Hobbie applied for the state agri-business award with his Supervised Agricultural Experience owning a drone business with his brother and doing crop scouting. He didn’t realize becoming a top finalist was as big of a deal as it is until he was at the state convention, he said.

Clint VanDerVliet

By working at his dad’s hog business, a buying station in Sioux Falls, VanDerVliet earned third place in the state for his swine production project. He also learned patience and time management, he said. He received $50 and a plaque for his placing.

“Markets are fluctuating in the hog industry a lot,” he said. Knowing the right time to sell is important.

For the full story on these FFA members see the print edition of the Moody County Enterprise