Education 22 September 2025

Hillsboro FFA team brings home a win at Big E Competition

The Highland County Press - Staff Photo - Create Article
Pictured left to right are: Emma Yochum, Blake Herdman, Carter Boyd and Claire Winkle.

By Delaina Southworth
Hillsboro FFA Chapter 

This year, four of the Hillsboro Great Oaks FFA members, Blake Herman, Claire Winkle, Emma Yochum, and Carter Boyd, got the chance to compete at the Big E competition in Massachusetts.  

Public speakers who place second in state and General Livestock teams that place 4th in state can compete again at the Eastern States Exposition, or Big E. For these Hillsboro FFA members, they competed as a team in the General Livestock Judging CDE, where Blake Herdman placed 1st, Claire Winkle placed 2nd, Emma Yochum placed 3rd, and Carter Boyd placed 4th. With our team holding the top four placements, they automatically won 1st overall team. 

Through this event, participants will develop the ability to make accurate observations, determine desirable traits, and make informed decisions based on these observations for the animals they are judging. They will also learn to discuss and defend their decisions. 

Emma Yochum also had the chance to compete in the Prepared Public Speaking Division. She had to prepare and recite a speech to a panel of judges and was then questioned on her speech. Emma placed 4th overall. The state of Ohio also won the sweepstakes contest, beating all of the Eastern States. During their time in Massachusetts, these members got the chance to see the Statue of Liberty, the 9/11 memorial, and watch a Broadway show. Congratulations to Blake, Claire, Emma and Carter.
 

Add new comment

This is not for publication.
This is not for publication.
About text formats

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
Article comments are not posted immediately to the Web site. Each submission must be approved by the Web site editor, who may edit content for appropriateness. There may be a delay of 24-48 hours for any submission while the web site editor reviews and approves it. Note: All information on this form is required. Your telephone number and email address is for our use only, and will not be attached to your comment.
CAPTCHA This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions. Image CAPTCHA
Enter the characters shown in the image.