In The News: NHS freshmen clean up at FFA state convention

Newberg High School news — First-year students win total of four state championships and place second on an FFA knowledge test

Newberg High School had a strong showing at the Oregon FFA State Convention March 20-23 at Silverton Union High School, but with freshmen bringing home four awards, advisor and teacher Bob Beckner was especially proud of his first-year students.

Wayne Barnett, Todd Halleman and John McCarthy all won state championships for their agri-science experiments, while McCarthy also won the beginning public speaking competition.

If that weren’t enough, classmate Abby Bull finished runner-up behind McCarthy in public speaking, with Barnett, Halleman and McCarthy teaming up with Branko Frketich to place second on the FFA knowledge test.

“They worked hard and deserved it,” Beckner said.

McCarthy’s presented a five-and-a-half-minute speech on a particular GMO salmon, extolling its safety and positive economic and environmental effects.

Because they grow twice as fast and require 10 percent less feed, production costs for aquaculturists would be cut in half. Because they aren’t allowed in wild rivers and are raised in tanks, feeding them doesn’t pollute rivers and the ammonia waste can also be recycled for use in water gardens.

Bull was awarded second place for her speech on the negative effects of plastic bags and potential solutions to the problems of their use.

“A lot of the chemicals in them are very harmful to the environment, to plants, animals and us, including BPA, which is extremely harmful to humans,” Bull said. “They also don’t biodegrade. It takes 1,000 years to break down and they’re still there even after they break down, there just in smaller pieces.”

Beckner said he was quite impressed with McCarthy’s agri-science experiment, which won first place in Division I of the Environmental Science and Natural Resource Systems category for comparing baby fish growth on two different food sources while also examining their environmental impact.

Contrary to McCarthy’s hypothesis, manmade fish flakes produced twice the growth of brine shrimp because, as he later learned through research, they provide vitamins crucial to growth. The down side was that the pH of the water fell from 8.0 to just 7.8 compared to a drop to an ideal 7.0 for the brine shrimp.

McCarthy, who performed the experiment to learn what to feed his juvenile fish at home, concluded that it would be best to feed them both food types because that would provide both the nutritional and environmental benefits, plus lower costs because brine shrimp are one-tenth of the cost.

Barrett earned his state championship in the plant systems category after comparing growth in beans when utilizing a brand name premium soil or a generic one. He found there was no difference in plant or root size, although he notes that a longer testing period may be needed to produce a variance.

Halleman won in the Animal Systems category after comparing growth in full-blood (100 percent bred from original) to purebred (less than 100 percent) Boer goats. He found full bloods gained 49 pounds to 42 for the purebreds, with three of his top weight gainers being full blood.

Newberg’s seniors also had a strong convention, led by Johanna DeJoria, who was named the state’s top agri-science student after going through an exhaustive application and interview process.

Along with John Lombardo and Dan Womack, DeJoria also earned her STATE degree to go along with a fifth-place showing in the job interview competition.

Classmate Margaret Halstead won the extemporaneous public speaking contest after drawing the topic centering on urban agriculture’s potential effects on food deserts.

Senior Sasha Perez won a state title for her specialty animal project and also took third in the art contest.

For the second year in a row, senior Megan Joyce won first place in the equipment category of the FFA photo contest for her image of a tractor.

The business math team of Joyce, Lombardo, Karissa Noragon and Israel Pintor also took third place.

Other strong finishes included Peter Gentile’s runner-up finish in sophomore public speaking and Davis Smith’s fifth-place showing in creed speaking.

Beckner also noted that Emily Sandberg was elected secretary to the Lower Willamette FFA District and that Perez was selected as one of three ambassadors of the Yamhill County Fair and Rodeo for 2015.

Halstead, who was a member of the state champion ag sales team, will have to choose what competition to partake in at the national convention in the fall.

Thinking back on all the conventions she’s been to in four years, she said it feels like it was just last week when she was a freshman, so she was especially impressed by Newberg’s first-year students.

“My class, there were just a couple of kids that were into it and none of us really did that well in anything,” Halstead said. “But it’s really cool that in this class there are a lot of kids who are really involved and really excited to compete.”

Written by  Seth Gordon