McKenzie County 4-H team wins national competition
Kristen Jones
Farmer Staff Writer
Sylvia Boekelman, Paige Delaney, Ryan Pingel, and Luke Smith all went to Oklahoma a week ago to represent, not only McKenzie County, but all of North Dakota in the National 4-H Range Judging Competition.
Each student had their own goal to meet and as a team they set the goal to achieve first place. Paige Delaney wanted to make it into the top five, Luke and Sylvia both wanted to be in the top 10, and Ryan was a little extra competitive and set his goal to beat whatever Luke did.
To the pride of everyone who knows them, all four teens made their goal.
Range judging is a very intricate and complex science, that requires years of hard work and dedication before seeing any results in competitions.
Paige explained, “ Range judging is like where you have to identify about 100 plants [that grow on the land,] and it differs in each state, and you have to tell someone how many cows can go on each site.”