Heather Jennings, Mississippi State University Extension Service agent in Rankin County, and Jennifer Williams, Extension agent in Lincoln County, coached the team. Funding and support came from the MSU Department of Animal and Dairy Science.
“Jennifer and I are very proud of these young people,” said Jennings. “They put in a lot of time and work studying and preparing for this competition. We had never entered this competition before, so we didn’t know what to expect. Now that we have this experience, we plan to be very competitive in the future.”
The competition had both individual and team components.
In addition to the first-place team win in evaluation, team member Will Watts of Lincoln County came in sixth overall in individual evaluation, and McKayla Shelton of Calhoun County was 10th overall in evaluation.