HOWELLS, Nebraska - The Northeast Area FFA Land Judging Contest was held Tuesday, October 5th near Howells.  532 students from 27 high schools registered that morning at the Howells Ballroom before traveling to the testing site.  The contest was held on ground owned by John Doerneman, four miles east of Howells.

A team from Wisner-Pilger High School finished first with the top score of 1251 points.  Team members are:  Sydney Porter, Spencer Batenhorst, Taylor Scholting, and Beau Ruskamp.

A team from Howells-Dodge High School placed second with a score of 1191.  Third place went to Allen with a score of 1152.  Teams from West Point, Pender, Oakland-Craig, and Stanton also brought home top honors.  The top 7 teams will participate at the State competition in the Holdrege area on October 20th.

The top individual award went to Sydney Porter of Wisner-Pilger with a total score of 326. Levi Belina of Howells-Dodge was second with a score of 325, Spencer Batenhorst of Wisner-Pilger was came in third with 321 points. Ellee Hall of North Bend and Taylor Scholting of Wisner-Pilger came in fourth and fifth.

The site provided good diversity in soils and landscape positions for the students. The contest helps the students make informed decisions regarding soil utilization in the future. Scoring was completed the following day at the Lower Elkhorn Natural Resources District (LENRD) office in Norfolk.

The high schools participating were:  Allen, Bancroft-Rosalie, Battle Creek, Blair, Clarkson, Elkhorn Valley-Tilden, Emerson-Hubbard, Howells-Dodge, Leigh, Logan View, Lutheran High Northeast, Lyons-Decatur Northeast, Madison, Newman Grove, Norfolk, North Bend, Oakland-Craig, Osmond, Pender, Pierce, Randolph, Scribner-Snyder, Stanton, Tekamah-Herman, Wayne, West Point-Beemer, and Wisner-Pilger.

The LENRD, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, Howells-Dodge High School, and the Nebraska FFA Land Judging Committee organized and sponsored the contest.