Chelan FFA member capped off a busy week with a trip Moses Lake for the Washington State FFA Tractor Driving Career Development Event and the State FFA Potato Grading CDE.   Earlier in the week they traveled to the campus of Washington State University in Pullman to attend a lecture by world renowned animal behavior specialist Temple Grandin, Animal Science PhD. from Colorado State University. 

In the Tractor Driving CDE the Chelan Chapter was represented by two teams.  The team of Derek Ahl, Lupe Villasenor, and Jake Straub brought home the seventh place State Plaque in a 26 team field.  The team of Enrique Diaz and Ben Lorenz placed 16^th overall.  The Tractor CDE requires students to have a good working knowledge of tractor operation, maintenance, and safety.  They take a 50 question knowledge test and then have to drive a course.  The course requires contestants to pull out of a parking spot lined with cones and then back a tractor and trailer through a  slalom course through five cones then drive forward through the same five cones and back the trailer back into the same parking spot.  Competitors loose points for knocking over a cone, rubbing a cone, course deviations, changing directions, excessive braking, riding the clutch, and one point per second for every second over the two minute thirty second allotted time period. 

The Potato Grading CDE requires students to grade 100 potatoes either as a US No. 1, US No. 2, or cull based on the USDA Grading Standards.  They then have to identify blemishes on 20 potatoes and evaluate three classes of seed potatoes.  In addition, they have to give a set of oral reasons on ten potatoes in the allotted two minute time period.  This was the first time for Chelan FFA members in the Potato Grading CDE.  The team of Ian Cowell, Bobby Hanson, Jake Straub, Apolinar Blanco and Derek Ahl  placed a respectable 14^th place in the 31 team field.  The team of Lupe Villasenor, Kali Vanrensum, Sedyrra Copas, Chad Miller, and Elijah Larson earned a 16^th place finish. 

The Tractor CDE plaque makes the third piece of state hardware earned by Chelan FFA members this fall in three state CDE appearances.  Members now begin preparation leading up to the Washington State FFA Apple Career Development Event.  They will compete at Wenatchee and Manson in tune competitions. Then on November 22^nd, they travel to the Manson Grange for the District VII Apple CDE and then to Wenatchee on December 7^th for the State CDE at the Washington State Horticulture Association Annual Meetings.