Four students from Brunswick, Mo., took top honors in the agronomy contest at FFA's national convention in Louisville.

National news isn't always a welcome thing for a small town. But the kind of news four students at Brunswick High School brought to Brunswick, Mo., was a story of accomplishment and top honors—something the community celebrated.

In late 2005, Michael Manson, Alex Reigelsberger, Megan Switzer and Jacob Woolston, won first place in the agronomy contest at the national FFA convention in Louisville, Ky.

In FFA lingo, the contest goes by the Agronomy Career Development Event. Participants' knowledge of agronomic sciences is tested through several levels of competition including developing solutions for real-world agronomic scenarios and identifying seeds, insects, soil and crops.

To make it to the national competition, a team like Brunswick's must first win district competition and take top place in contests at the Missouri FFA convention in April.

"It's tough competition," said Brunswick ag instructor and FFA advisor Tom Zeilstra. "We won state by just 17 points out of a total of 2,500. And, Missouri's agronomy team has won the national contest since 2000."

That's a fact that brought with it pressure to continue the legacy.

"Yes," said Switzer, "we didn't want to be the first to lose."

With the state competition out of the way, practice continued. Zeilstra made sure that the students had what they needed to excel. Because the contest features plants and weeds from across the country, he scoured sources to find live seed to grow in the school's greenhouse.

The students spent spare time before and after school identifying growing plants, which had been staggered in planting to provide reference for different growing stages. "In March, the greenhouse is a jungle," said Reigelsberger.

For the plant identification section of the competition, the students study individual plant characteristics. And they know them well. During an interview for this story, we asked the difference between seedling Kentucky bluegrass and fescue, which both happened to be growing in the greenhouse. The response was quick and accurate, accompanied with a dissertation on the characteristics that separate the two plants.

All four members of the team participate in sports at Brunswick High School. And they said that a team dynamic similar to a sports team evolved as they studied and practiced together. Because the contest has several components, natural strengths came to light—especially in the presentation portion.

"When we practiced the presentation, we figured out who was best at doing each part. On the individual portion of the contest, it doesn't matter," said Woolston.

Is there a special hurdle for the team from Missouri when the state has enjoyed a reign atop this contest?

Maybe.

"At national, the hardest part was the presentation. They gave us a type of question we hadn't studied. We were ready for crops, but got a livestock question. In the question, we had 100 calves to background. We had to choose pasture, including how long to keep the animals on. We had to size the pasture with fescue and ladino clover as the forage base," said Manson.

That might be enough to shake the most stalwart agronomy team, but they finished second in that portion of the contest with 910 out of 1,000 points. Turns out that three out of the four of them have cattle as an FFA project and all four were on the grassland management contest team last year.

With a close second in the presentation, it was up to individual performance in the remaining categories to take the prize. The practice paid. In overall individual rankings for the contest, Manson took first; Woolston fourth; Reigelsberger 11th; and Switzer 22nd.

Aside from the notoriety and usual plaque, for their performance, each student was awarded a $1,000 FFA scholarship for use at a school of their choice. For winning first Manson received an additional $1,000 through a scholarship recently set up for FFA through the support of June Baker of Mexico, Mo.

This is Zeilstra's fifth year at Brunswick and the first set of students to win a national FFA contest during his tutelage. He was obviously excited to have won, but for him there is an underlying goal for the enterprise.

"These are a good bunch of kids," he said. "Three of these students went to national contest in soils. What I hope students get out of this is not so much the content of the contest. What I want them to see is that it takes hard work to be successful, and with it you can be successful in anything you do."