By Mandy Bourgeois | Published Thursday, October 15, 2009
After two years of working together, the Decatur FFA horse evaluation team will compete at the 82nd National FFA Convention in Indianapolis, beginning Wednesday, Oct. 21.
The team, representing Texas, will compete against teams representing every other state in the United States, as well as Puerto Rico and Guam. The team of four Decatur high school students joins a Decatur tractor team and 2009 senior Ishley Elmore, showing a tractor individually, at the national stage.
"Our program is sending three teams to nationals," said FFA adviser and horse evaluation team coach Jim Allsup. "That's exceptional."
Seniors Jordan Johnson and Jordan Lane and juniors Shelby Argo and Tyler Lisby won the state title at an April competition at Texas Tech University. At the national level, the team will judge eight classes of horses, four in halter and four in performance, and also compete in a team activity class.
"They go through a pretty tough test," Allsup said of the competition, adding that the team will compete several days during the convention. "These are pretty full days."
Before going to the national convention, the team will stop in Oklahoma City for the National Morgan Judging contest, an invitation-only precursor to the Indianapolis competition.
The team enters six to eight competitions a year and practices two to three hours twice a week. Now that the team has had several months to prepare for the national competition, the girls are beginning to feel nervous.
"I'm nervous, now that it's here," Lisby said. "It's going to be a long contest."
Along with horse judging, each team member is involved in rodeo competitions.
"They're fantastic - they're all smart and brilliant. They are around horses every day. They know their equine knowledge," Allsup said. "What is unique about these four is we worked our way up at each competition. We got better every time."
For the team members, this competition could lead to college scholarships.
"Many major colleges have horse judging teams. If they make it into the top five at the national competition, they're going to have colleges offer scholarships," Allsup said.
Going head to head against the top teams from every state could prove to be intimidating for the team, but the girls trust their teacher and their knowledge to pull them through.
"I think we've come a long way together. I think we have a chance," Lane said, with Lisby adding, "We're at their level now."
The team will hear the results of the competition Friday, Oct. 23.
