{"id":108448,"date":"2015-11-04T20:59:17","date_gmt":"2015-11-05T03:59:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/ag-students-show-off-skills\/"},"modified":"2015-11-04T20:59:17","modified_gmt":"2015-11-05T03:59:17","slug":"ag-students-show-off-skills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/ag-students-show-off-skills\/","title":{"rendered":"Ag students show off skills"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Jim
Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal<br><br>Dolores ag-science students Ryan Lyons, Mikey Sawyer, Riley Syra, and Guy Wallace (not pictured) recently competed in an industrial skills event held in Louisville, Kentucky and sponsored by Future Farmers of America. In addition to earning gold, silver, and bronze medals the team also won a Lincoln welder. Congratulations!<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A team of Dolores agriculture students proved their mechanical know-how during the Future Farmers of America skills competition held in Louisville, Ky., Oct. 28-30.<\/p>\n

Ryan Lyons, Michael Sawyer, Riley Syra and Guy Wallace earned a chance to compete at a national level after winning at the district and state competition stages. Out of 143 competitors, they scored in the upper third, earning a gold, three silvers, and a bronze metal. As part of the winnings, the took home a Lincoln welder.<\/p>\n

The ag-science events test students on welding, farming mechanics, electrical, and motor-building skills, and other industry-based skills.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re tested on a series of skills, from welding and engine building to math and electrical,\u201d said Lyons. \u201cIt\u2019s timed, and we\u2019re judged based on safety, quality, such as strength of the weld, and proper cleanup.\u201d<\/p>\n

The students participated in individual events and in team events, then had their work critiqued by experts.<\/p>\n

Sawyer loves working on small engines, and was tested on dissembling a cylinder head then putting it back together.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been practicing every week for the last three months,\u201d he said. \u201cThe practice paid off, and as a team we worked well together.\u201d<\/p>\n

In one test, the group of mechanically inclined students were tasked with demonstrating their ability to properly spray a field using high-tech equipment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe worked together to make a spreadsheet outlining the job, then had to assemble the sprayer and connect the right nozzles,\u201d Lyons said. \u201cIt helps that farming is part of our regular life.\u201d<\/p>\n

The students said there is more math involved than people realize.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re all good at math, and that helped us excel, plus we practiced quite a bit,\u201d Sawyer said. \u201cIt\u2019s a huge event, with a conference that had thousands of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a good competition and great to see how serious all the teams are,\u201d Lyons said. \u201cWe learned a lot from the from professional critiques after the tests.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the competition the fellas blew off some steam.<\/p>\n

\u201cLaser tag and mini-golf were a blast,\u201d Sawyer said. \u201cAnd we visited the National Corvette museum.\u201d<\/p>\n

jmimiaga@the-journal.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dolores team competes well at national level<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":108449,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[281,44,103],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-108448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-agriculture","tag-dolores","tag-dolores-schools-re-4a"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108448"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=108448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}