Six UTM students traveled to Kansas City, Mo., to compete against 28 of the top schools in the nation April 16- 19.
Members of UTM’s National Agri-Marketing Association loaded the van early Tuesday morning and headed to the “Show Me State” to present their product, Fishtables.
Members of the team included Ty Fitzgerald, Brandon McMillan, Connor Morgan, Malorie Paine, Benton Powell andBethanie Wood. Along with these students, faculty advisors Dr. Joey Mehlhorn and Kelly Davidson also attended the trip.
The team wrote an executive summary and learned their respective parts in about a month. While a month may seem like a decent amount of time compared to other schools who worked on their products for one to two years, this left the team feeling slightly behind.
However, they did not let this discourage them and they gave it their all during the Wednesday morning competition. The competition was divided into six heats. From there, two teams would advance into the semifinals, and then from the semifinals, the remaining teams would advance into the finals.
UTM competed against University of Florida, University of Minnesota, Texas A&M and Iowa State University.
With only two teams advancing from the heat, UTM members knew the competition would be tough. Still, they went into the competition and spoke confidently about their product.
Following UTM’s presentation, the winners from each heat were announced. University of Florida and University of Minnesota were the two teams that advanced from their heat.
Following the semifinals, each heat was able to attend a critique session with their judges. Here, the team members found out they were a close third behind the top two teams. UTM followed closely behind University of Minnesota, which ended up winning first place overall in the finals.
Of course, this pumped up the team and they are ready to head back to the competition next year.
For anyone interest in joining NAMA or for more information about the organization, contact the organization president, Carrie Smith at carlsmit@ut.utm.edu.
