[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his summer, a senior and two San Luis Obispo High School Alumni’s have been working on perfecting a speaking competition. On October 29 to November 1 a group of SLOHS students are going to represent California in Louisville, Kentucky for National Future Farmers of America competitions.

In the past FFA Nationals, Jessica Judge was 5^th in the nation for prepared speaking. We also got 8^th for floral design, two first place Novice Parli-Pro and 2^nd in the nation for Livestock Judging team. Our chapter has done great at Nationals in the past, and SLOHS is expecting all competitors  to come home with a win.

The well-known Parli-Pro public speaking team is going along with a few others. There are a few new teams going, including the Marketing team, senior Evan New-Schmidt, SLOHS Alumnus Aidan Munoz-Christian, and SLOHS Alumnus Jessica Judge.

For this competition, “We choose a local agriculturally-related company and research them, their product, and consumer interests,” said SLOHS Alumnus Aiden Munoz-Christian. “We also write and present a marketing plan for how to better promote their company and market their products so they can meet their goals.”

This year, they have been researching SLOMaid Ice Cream and are working very hard to be the best they can be. Senior Evan New-Schmidt said, “Practicing has been a little difficult, with two people on our team out of high school, but we’ve been able to update our manuscript together online and now we’re focusing now on updating our verbal presentation.” They practice three hours a week currently and will continue to practice to reach their next goal—Nationals.

All teams going to Nationals won 1^st place at their respective state competitions last April and now are competing against teams from other states. New-Schmidt said, “We’ve got a great team set up, and I’m confident that we’ll represent California to the best of our ability in October.” The best of luck to all teams competing, let’s bring back some gold!