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Arielle O’Connor brings home the buckle

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Pictured: Cheryl Moss of Maid Rite Feeds presents the 1st Place Buckle to Globe FFA student Arielle O’Connor for winning as range individual in a Cochise County competition Sept. 6.

Globe High School’s FFA team returned from Cochise County’s Chiricahua Mountain foothills in high spirits after a marathon day that started at 4 a.m.

The annual Riggs Field Day Sept. 6 tested agriculture students’ knowledge of soils, plants and wildlife, with a spirited, but friendly, competition hosted on grassy rangeland in the shadow of the Dos Cabezas peaks and the Chiricahua National Monument.

Continuing a tradition that started in 1971, the Willcox-San Simon Natural Resource Conservation District hosted the annual event for 10 high schools and 86 FFA students representing Duncan, San Simon, Ash Creek, Valley Union, Ft. Thomas, St. David, Willcox, Globe, Bowie and Tombstone. Nine Globe students participated in all three categories.

Arielle O’Connor won a first-place buckle in the Range: Individual category for her knowledge of rangeland plant identification.

The competition ended with a three-way tie. Contest organizers quickly created a one species sudden-death competition, with the first student to correctly identify a range plant as winner, and then an additional competition to break the tie between second and third places.

Since the Globe students arrived early to the competition, they had walked around the community center grounds and with the help of the coach, had identified all the plants within the community center grounds as a group. O’Connor won first place by correctly identifying lambsquarter, a wild edible annual forb.

“What a day,” said Globe FFA advisor Justen Ollendick. “Teams did great, and it was a learning experience for all. Arielle received a nice buckle as High Point Range individual in the competition. This morning she informed her coach that: ‘this is my senior year. Today I’ve set a goal for myself, and that’s to finally win the buckle after all these years competing at this,’ and by darn, she did just that. I couldn’t be more thankful for the wonderful volunteers, and school board member who loves the FFA and coaching CDE teams. Here’s a huge ‘thank you’ to the Willcox-San Simon NRCD for putting together a quality contest; we can’t wait to be back next year.”

Adults who’d like to volunteer, donate or help the Globe FFA program may call Globe Unified School District Agricultural Education Instructor and FFA Advisor Justen Ollendick at 402-6014, or connect at facebook.com.