Penta County FFA was the best among the Wood County chapters at the 21st annual FFA District I
Agricultural and Industrial Diagnostics Contest held Friday at Owens Community College.
Penta finished third among the 10 chapters which competed. Elmwood FFA was fifth; Otsego FFA, sixth and
Bowling Green FFA finished in eighth.
Formerly called the Tractor Troubleshooting event, the contest involve teams, consisting of two students,
completing various testing to determine their expertise of tractors. As part of the practical skills
competition, teams will be required to locate, identify and repair a malfunction on five pieces of
equipment donated for the event.
Penta performed well in the practical part of the test, including a 61 on one problem, the highest
individual score of the event. However, Drake Kalmbacher and Mike Hamernik’s written test scores were 14
points lower than the champions from Ayersville. The champions totaled 274; while second place Woodmore
scored 268 for the contest. Penta was close behind at 266.
Jay Graham and Nick Stearns from Elmwood totaled 248. Ben Thomas and Caleb Baus of Otsego scored 243
points; while Alex Wynn and Ben Wilhelm of Bowling Green finished with 225.
A panel of 10 judges, comprising industry representatives and Owens Transportation Technologies faculty,
graded each high school in the areas of workmanship as a team, safety practices, problem-solving
techniques and identification, and repair of malfunctions to determine a district champion. Ayersville
advances to the state championship competition.
Local businesses donating tractors for the competition are Streacker Tractor Sales, Crosby Equipment,
Eagle Machinery Inc., Caterpillar Inc., John Deere and Owens Community College.