Building a herd
By Jerry W. Kram
The FFA is a competitive bunch. Each year students all across the state match their expertise in areas ranging from crops and livestock to parliamentary procedure and the history of FFA striving to make their chapter the best in North Dakota so they can move on to national competition.
The top achievement for a North Dakota FFAer is a modest wooden representation of the outline of North Dakota topped with a metallic bison. The statue, along with the trophy’s small size, has earned it the name "Baby Bison" and it is coveted by every competitive FFA member.
"My husband tried win one when I was in school but never did back in the 1980s," said Julie Woodbury, who is the FFA Advisor for the Parshall School District. "It’s not a really big trophy. But it is basically the most coveted trophy in FFA."
Myles Odermann, a junior at Parshall High School, has won not one but two Baby Bison. Last year he won the state FFA quiz competition last June, where members are grilled on the history of the FFA. Last week, at the state competition, Odermann, who is also the president of the Parshall FFA, won his second trophy by winning the Agronomy (formerly know as Crop Judging) competition in Minot. He scored 975 points out of a possible 1,000 to earn his second Baby Bison.
