KIMBALL'S NEW STATE CHAMPS

For the past two years the Kimball FFA Food Science team has been disappointed, but the disappointment disappeared this year as they brought home the state championship.

The team consists of seniors Grace Anderson, Carlee Murdoch, Hayden Sours and Julia Winstrom.

Julia expressed their two-year disappointment with, "The past two years, we have come up short on this championship. We worked hard and gave it our all last year, and unfortunately, we came up short by 7 points. It was heartbreaking."

She further explained that in the past two years, they came in second to Eustis-Farnam.

"We didn't know if we ever wanted to compete anymore," she said. "We didn't want to have our hopes set too high."

Expressing her views, three-time individual winner at the state contest in Food Science, Grace Anderson said, "The biggest challenge I personally had to overcome was the heartbreak from last year's loss. We put our all into this competition last year and came up short, and that killed a lot of my motivation."

Team member Carlee Murdoch said she thought that they "had improved so much in working as a team to utilize each of our individual strengths, mostly in the product development aspect."

The heartbreak of second place affected each team member differently.

Hayden Sours confessed, "The biggest challenge was we had to overcome the thought of failure. We have been stressed about this competition, and we all have a lot going on this year since we are all seniors. We had to put the thought of winning back of our heads and just focus on the contest.

"I have learned how to compete under a lot of pressure. Everyone wanted this for us, and we knew we could do it. We just needed to calm down and focus on the contest rather than winning."

Grace explained that the contest focuses on food chemistry, taste and scent tests, food safety, and product development. "I think the most valuable lesson we've learned has been to push through the losses and to not lose sight of what's truly important."

The Kimball team had an impressive placing. Grace Anderson was first in the Food Science state contest, followed by Julia Winstrom in second, Carlee Murdoch in third, and Hayden Sours in sixth.

In other contests, Landon Norberg placed fourth in Ag Technology and Mechanics. All five FFA seniors from Kimball received their State FFA Degrees. State FFA Degress were awarded to Grace Anderson, Carlee Murdoch, Hayden Sours, Julia Winstrom and Landon Norberg.

Adding to the many awards for Kimball, Superintendent Trevor Anderson received an Honorary State FFA Degree at the state convention.

In summary about the FFA state contest, Grace said she felt that "Rather than being stressed about the competition and dedicating all of our time to it, we decided we'd give it what we had left and be happy no matter the results."

Needless to say, they were happy with the results.