8 MINNEOTA STUDENTS COMPETE IN SKILLS FEST EVENT IN WILLMAR

Eight Minneota students competed in Skills Fest, an annual high school technical skills competition at Ridgewater College in Willmar this past weekend.
Over 300 students from 29 high schools in grades 10-12 competed in a wide variety of technical skills, including auto, ag and welding challenges, computer and photography skills, veterinary medicine, plumbing, paramedics and meat cutting.
Minneota’s Farm Business Management team of Lane Loyson, Jackson Lacek and Lucas Rybinski placed first.
Garet DeBoer was second in the Shielded Metal Arc Welding competition, Hudson Scholten placed fifth and Dylan Vlaminck was sixth.
Zack Fier came in second in the Livestock Dairy Management competition. Joe Verschelde also competed in Dairy Management. Minneota Ag teacher and FFA advisor Matt Buysse took the local group to the Skills Fest event.
The Farm Management team had to problem solve from three planted crops, corn, soybeans and wheat.
“We had to figure out how to plant the crops in different types of fields to determine the best yield,” said Loyson. “The three fields would be sandy, wetter or normal. Then we had to roll a dice to determine a weather scenario. It was challenging, but it was fun, too.”
The Livestock Dairy Management category required participants to take various written tests on knowledge of dairy cattle and naming certain tools.
The competitors in the welding competition were judged on the quality of their welds.