The Greene County FFA Chapter is preparing for their upcoming district competition.

Advisor Raelyn Harris says three students will compete at Harlan High School tomorrow, including juniors Zach Burbank for welding, Conner Allender for extemporaneous speaking and Makayla Kafer for ag broadcasting. Burbank explains he was nervous for sub-districts and spotted a problem he had with one of his welds during the competition. 

“So I stopped and changed it. Well then it didn’t look any better. So I just welded it all up and I put it on the table, and I’m like, ‘There’s no way I’m going to win this, because they look terrible.’ Well I came back and looked at the results and I was first, and I was kind of shocked because I was like, ‘There’s no way this is happening.’ It turned out alright.”

Allender describes the challenges that extemp speaking can have.  

 “One of the challenges is having only 30 minutes to prepare your speech and you not knowing what your judges are going to be like or what subject you’ll get. You just get five (subjects) to choose from and you’ll have to just choose the one that will fit you best.”  

Welding is only offered at the district level, but extemp speaking and ag broadcasting will advance to the state contest next month at Iowa State University.