This weekend was one of the busiest weekends of the school year for the Okawville FFA. During the day on Friday, the FFA attended the horse judging CDE. It was originally supposed to be done in Carbondale, hosted by SIUC, but with the rain, the DuQuoin State Fair allowed them to move it to their fairgrounds under an arena with a roof. This competition is based on judging horses from various points of view. The first view was the horses standing at different angles and directions. Then, they would follow with the horses walking, trotting, and jogging. Finally, they took the horses through an obstacle and were judged based on their performance. They got 10 out of 12 chapters in Section 22, but there were 57 schools throughout the state. They had enough participants to have 2 teams this year: JV and Varsity. On JV, they had: Katelyn Gogolek with a score of 240, Abby Brennfleck with 236, Andrew Bunch with 235, and Tyler Storck with 211. On Varsity; Madison Gogolek with 242, Lily Helbig with 233, Izzy Howard with 220, and Kate Borrenpohl with 219. They also had 2 extra people who were alternates: Clayton Borrenpohl with 239 and Lane Borrenpohl with 219.
When they got back they still had more to do. This past weekend was the 76th Annual Okawville Wheat Festival. Every year, they volunteer their time all weekend to take care of the trash and cans from Friday night to Sunday night. In between that time, they had some events that some members participated in. Saturday afternoon, the Wheat Fest had their World Series Tractor Pull. Braxton Rennegarbe, Katelyn Gogolek, and Madison Gogolek pulled their tractors. We had 2 people placing, with Madison Gogolek getting 1st place Allis Chalmers C, and Braxton Rennegarbe getting 2nd Place in their class. Finally, Sunday was one of the days they were waiting for: the Annual Wheat Fest Parade. They finalized and worked on their float the last 2 weeks hoping to get 1st place, and it was a big success. They had many FFA members walk along the float and during the parade. After the parade, the top 5 floats were announced. They ended up getting 4th place, beating their score last year when they got 5th place. They had a very busy weekend. It was awesome to see members of FFA do so much more for other clubs other than just FFA.
