Photo courtesy of Samantha Hardaway

Several Greene County 4-H’ers are in Ames for the next three days, putting lots of skills to the test against other 4-H’ers from across Iowa.

Greene County ISU Extension 4-H and Youth Coordinator Samantha Hardaway says the State Livestock Triathlon is today through Sunday at the Hansen Ag Center at Iowa State University. She tells Raccoon Valley Radio there are three parts to the competition that includes a skillathon with five separate challenges that revolves around quality assurance and other livestock aspects, a quiz bowl with animal science trivia, and the livestock judging portion. Hardaway talks about the levels of the different teams that Greene County has represented.

“This will be our third year competing at the state competition. So our first year, we had individuals (and) our team placed third overall at the competition, and then last year we jumped up an age group. So the competition gets even tougher and this year, we’re jumping up one more age group. So we’ll be at the senior level this year, along with an intermediate team, and a junior team.”   

She is hoping for kids to either win their age divisions or advance to the national contest.