NCTA Reserve Champs at nationals

April 23, 2018

By Mary Crawford, NCTA News

NORFOLK, Neb. – The Aggies at the Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture in Curtis have repeated a Reserve Champion title in national agriculture contests hosted in Nebraska.

Twenty five students competed in 12 categories at the North American Colleges and Teachers in Agriculture competitions April 19-21.  Awards were presented Saturday evening.

Nearly 760 students from 43 college and universities competed in events coordinated by Northeast Community College in Norfolk. NCTA was one of the 16 two-year and 27 four-year colleges in the competition.

The NCTA Aggies earned second place in sweepstakes points by capturing 10 team placings in the top three. Black Hawk College of Moline, Illinois won the overall division title.

“We are tremendously proud of our industrious students for receiving these national academic honors,” said Ron Rosati, dean of NCTA, which is the only two-year college of the University of Nebraska system.

“These contests document that NCTA students have a high degree of competence in a variety of agricultural skills. I appreciate their hard work and dedication to academic excellence,” Rosati said. “I also appreciate the guidance and mentorship they received from their faculty to lead them to this high level of expertise.”

A contest highlight was a repeat by the NCTA Crops Judging program again winning the national championship.  The four Aggie team members swept individual placings.

Dalon Koubek of North Platte won individuals honors, with Lee Jespersen of Hemingford in second, Will Kusant of Comstock as third, and Nate Montanez of Grand Island at fourth. Crops judging had 160 contestants.

Outstanding individual rankings included Grant Romshek, Shelby, second in Livestock Management, Braden Wilke, Columbus, second, Precision Ag, and Wyatt Duskie, Jewell, Kansas, third in Dairy Judging.

Overall, Aggie teams won second places overall for Agriculture Knowledge Bowl, Agribusiness, Agricultural Mechanics, Dairy and Precision Agriculture.

NCTA teams were third overall in Computer Applications, Equine Judging and Horticulture.

Aggie students represented NCTA academic areas of agribusiness management, agronomy, agricultural mechanics and horticulture, and animal science and agriculture education.

A complete listing of all NCTA students competing and their hometowns, team and individual category placings will be available later this week at: https://ncta.unl.edu/news-events.

Additional details with names and hometowns of the students in the photograph are listed on the attached PDF.