*Sent to all teachers on behalf of the John Wood Community College Ag Alumni Association.


Hello Agriculture Teachers, FFA Advisors, and 4-H Leaders

As previously mentioned, due to the Covid 19 Pandemic, we felt it best to forgo our in-person livestock judging contest. Nonetheless, with all challenges comes new opportunities! Since we are not able to offer our regularly scheduled contest, the JWCC Ag Alumni Board have decided to offer an online virtual contest. The goal with the virtual contest is not only to provide a career development event opportunity for your students, but also an educational opportunity that you may use as a teaching opportunity in the event that you are conducting virtual learning this fall.

How our contest will be operated:

• The contest will be open to all 4-H and FFA members that are high school seniors or below.
• This is a completely free opportunity however donations to the JWCC ag alumni would be appreciated.
• There will be 2 divisions. Varsity (High School Sophomores - Seniors) and Junior Varsity – (High School Freshman and Younger)
• The contest will launch on Monday, September 21^st and will be completed with results by Friday October 23^rd.
• The contest will be operated through the JWCC Ag Alumni Facebook Page. The Link is: https://www.facebook.com/jwccag/    If you are having the students participate in the contest on their own time we highly suggest having them “like” the page for the most up to date announcements. We understand if participating as a class lab/assignment some school software has a restriction on Facebook, however, we felt this was the best and most readily available way to post classes and announcements. Once on the Facebook page there will be a google documents link posted with each class where students will input their information and placings.
• Participants may choose to judge as an individual only or as a member of team. If having students judge as a team, we recommend designating a team and informing each member that they are on. For example: JWCC Team 1 or JWCC Team 2 etc.. That way students remain on the same team from week to week. You will not be allowed to switch teams or team members from week to week! Schools are allowed 4 members on each team and the top 3 scores count towards the overall team score. There is no limit on the number of teams or individuals you may enter in the contest.
• The plan is to release 1-3 classes per week posted to the Facebook page. The goal is for these to be done by species; Example- Week 1 – 3 cattle classes, Week 2 – 3 swine classes, Week 3 – sheep/goat classes. Each class will include a typical placings score of 50 points and 10 questions at 5 points each towards the participants overall score.
• Those of you that have attended the in-person contest before, have seen the abundance of prizes donated by ADM Animal Nutrition® and Moormans Showtec®. Those companies have once again continued their support and have again provided some excellent prizes. The goal upon the completion of the contest is to contact each coach/advisor and make an appointment date and time to deliver the prizes. Also new this year, the top individual in each weekly species division will be eligible for a John Wood Community College Livestock Judging Scholarship upon attendance at JWCC. 
• Currently, we are in the process of going to local producers and putting together classes and filming livestock. Because we are not limited to a one-day schedule of having producers bring in their livestock to campus, it has opened some new doors for new producers to be involved in the contest. Because of this, we are anticipating some extremely high-quality livestock. As mentioned, we are still in the process of putting this all together and thus at this date are not exactly certain of how many classes we will have in the contest. However, we expect a minimum of 6 classes and the number will not exceed 9 classes.

Please contact one of us that an email below, if you have any questions.

We’re looking forward to another great contest and the new experience.

Thank you,

Justin Lewis                                         Mike Tenhouse                                                   Jeff Galle

Livestock Judging Coach                  Agriculture Department Chair                        Ag Alumni Assoc. Advisor

jlewis@jwcc.edu                                mtenhouse@jwcc.edu                                      jeff_galle@jwcc.edu