Today we have a special guest columnist, Dr. Troy White from the University of Nebraska. He will educate us about the various contests that have been held for agricultural students in Nebraska for over 100 years. Take it away Dr. White.
The Preamble
Agricultural contests have played a pivotal role in the development of the FFA, which has been the subject of prior research (Tummons et al., 2017). A clear example of this was the adoption of the American Royal Livestock Show’s colors (old gold and national blue) as the official colors of the newly created Future Farmers of America in 1930 as a clear indication of its influence on the delegates at the 3rd Annual National Convention. But unlike the chicken-and-egg debate, the clear precursor to the FFA is the judging contest. Despite this fact, in nearly every state and at the national level, the contests have lost their autonomy.
One state where this is not the case is Nebraska, where, for 111 years, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Agriculture has hosted state-level agricultural contests for the state’s students. Membership in the FFA is not a requirement for participation, and girls have never been excluded from competing. Today, an MOC between UNL, the Nebraska Agricultural Educators Association, and the Nebraska FFA Association establishes the winner of the agricultural contests, currently called the Nebraska Career Development Events, as the representative for the Nebraska FFA Association to the National FFA Convention.
How did the state contests evolve and maintain their autonomy? Here is the story of Nebraska’s state agricultural contests.
The Nebraska Contest Story
As a rural agrarian state, the establishment of secondary schools at the local level was slow to develop. In 1895, a secondary-level agricultural school was established on the College of Agriculture campus called the School of Agriculture. It was the first secondary agriculture program in the state and one of the first secondary schools in the state. With a flexible schedule designed to accommodate the farm and ranch students of the state, the school would stay in operation for 35 years. So successful was the School of Agriculture that in 1911, funding was allocated, and in 1913, a second school of agriculture opened on the opposite side of the state in the small community of Curtis, just to the south of North Platte.
In 1915, Professor Howard Gramlich, Chairman of the Department of Animal Husbandry in the College of Agriculture, hosted a Livestock Judging Contest for secondary agricultural education students with the assistance of the Block and Bridle Club (Loeffel et al., 1962). The initial contest, which was only livestock judging, had 50-60 students attend. The two-day event included a day of instruction in animal husbandry and judging, an evening program featuring a movie at the theatre about campus happenings, with the second day devoted to the competition. This single livestock contest would expand over the next few years.
Figure 1. From Animal Husbandry Through the Years at the University of Nebraska, 1910-1962. Students learn the fine points of livestock judging before they compete.
By 1918, interest from other departments on campus led to the addition of other judging areas. The Babcock Milk test, egg grading, poultry production, an egg show, woodwork construction, livestock judging (including dairy cattle), and agronomy (grain judging and grain grading) were all listed for the 1927 contests. By 1929, the Nebraska Dairyman’s Association was sponsoring a dairy cattle judging contest. In 1930, Babcock Milk Tests were replaced by milk judging. In 1935, a farm mechanics contest replaced the woodworking and forging contests.
Figure 2. From the Lincoln Journal Star (Lincoln, Nebraska), April 27, 1932, Page 11
According to the Waverly Watchman Newspaper 1923 was a special year. That year:
For the first time in the history of the contest, a girl participated. Miss Jessie Yost of Hastings judged as a member of the Hastings team and won the gold medal offered to the best judge of Shorthorn cattle. To do this, it was necessary for her to beat out 62 boys selected from 21 high schools for their expertise in judging. Miss Yost also ranked high in other classes. There is no reason why girls cannot judge livestock as well as boys. (Thu, May 10, 1923, p. 1)
(Curator’s Note: Miss Yost was 14 years old at the time of the above contest and was a phenomenal livestock judge. In a district practice livestock contest in 1923 Jessie was 2nd high individual out of 72 contestants. She was third high individual in horse judging but first in judging Jersey cattle. At the 1923 state fair Jessie was the highest scoring individual in the dairy judging contest and was the top judge of Holsteins and Jerseys. At the world dairy show in Syracuse, New York in October of 1923 she was the 4th highest individual and placed 2nd on judging Ayrshires.)
Figure 3. Jessie Yost. From the Daily Drovers Journal-Stockman, South Omaha, Nebraska, 11,1923
The state high school agricultural judging contests were supervised by C.C. Minteer and H.E. Bradford, both members of the agricultural education faculty, with the assistance of a contest committee, but the actual contests were organized and run by the individual departments on campus.
Figure 4. H. E. Bradford, C.C. Minteer, and Dennis Clark (the state FFA President).
Image from the Lincoln Journal Star, April 19, 1936. P. 35
In the early years (starting in 1915), Nebraska hosted both eastern and western state high school agricultural contests, one at Lincoln and one at North Platte or Curtis, NE. Winners from the western contests could choose to travel the 200 miles to Lincoln to compete against the eastern schools. The winning livestock judging team from the western contest would travel to Denver to represent Nebraska at the Western Stock Show, and the eastern contest winners would travel south to compete at the American Royal contest in Kansas City. The winning dairy cattle judging team frequently traveled to the national dairy show to compete.
By 1929, a speaking contest was also included in the state contests, but by 1930, it was referred to as the FFA speaking contest and listed as part of the Nebraska State FFA Convention, which was held in conjunction with the state judging contests on the UNL campus or at the North Platte contests each April. In Nebraska, leadership and speaking events had a fluid relationship between UNL and the FFA. Some events, like Parliamentary Procedure, spent several years as a high school agriculture contest hosted by the university before transitioning to becoming an FFA event.
Professor C. C. Minteer directed the contests from 1918 until 1950, when Dr. H. Deems assumed this responsibility. Professor M. G. McCreight became coordinator of the contests in 1951 and continued in that capacity through 1973 (McCreight, 1973, pp. 22-23). Other directors of the state contests include Richard Douglass, Roger Gerdes, Leon Wissman, Lloyd Bell, Clifford McClain, Linda Moody, and Matt Kreifels, who is currently the state coordinator (2010).
Following World War II (1946) and after several years of not being offered, contests returned to the National Convention at Kansas City, were sponsored by the FFA Foundation, and began to be referenced in the literature as FFA Contests. No such transition occurred in Nebraska, nor were the state contests cancelled due to the war. While many contests at convention and the American Royal were cancelled, the Western National Stock show continued to host contests, and winners of the Nebraska contests were represented there.
Figure 5. Nebraska State Farm Shop Contest 1936
To help clarify the relationship between the different stakeholders and the Nebraska FFA, a memorandum of cooperation was entered into in 2020. Given the scope and variety of events offered through the National FFA, this agreement helped to clarify which of the Nebraska Team Ag Ed partners (Nebraska Department of Education (NDE), the Nebraska Agricultural Educators Association (NAEA), the Nebraska FFA Board of Directors, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources [CASNR]) was responsible for each of the many aspects the modern events require. Not all of the National FFA Career Development Events offered at the national level are hosted by UNL. Likewise, there are several state events which are not associated with a national contest, like Junior Livestock Evaluation and the Livestock Management events. In 2025, 4,241 students representing 210 schools from across the state participated in the Nebraska Career Development Events.
Since 1915, UNL departments have been sponsoring the state agricultural contests. This year, 2026 marks the 111th annual state agricultural contests (now called the Nebraska Career Development Events). With the exception of the two years that contests were virtual due to COVID, students from across the state journeyed to Lincoln each April to participate in the contests. This spring, UNL is slated to host 25 events including Agriscience, Agronomy, Ag Biotechnology, Ag Communications, Ag Issues Forum, Ag Sales, Ag Technology and Mechanics (in cooperation with the Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture), Environmental and Natural Resources, Farm and Agribusiness Management, Floriculture, Food Science and Technology, Livestock Evaluation, Livestock Management, Marketing Plan, Meats Evaluation, Nursery/Landscape, Poultry Evaluation, Veterinary Science, and Welding (in cooperation with Southeast Community College). In addition, a pilot Forestry contest will be offered. Each contest is coordinated by a contest committee composed of current agriculture teachers and teacher educators, but is run by faculty in the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources. In addition, scholarships are awarded to UNL-CASNR contest winners.
Contests and agricultural education have an intertwined relationship and each state has something unique woven into its events. How an event came to be can often help explain why things function the way they do today. Modern digital resources make documenting your school’s contest history easier than ever before. As we come up on the 100th anniversary of the National FFA Organization, chapter reporters and historians will be compiling the history of FFA at their school. Hopefully, if your school has been around for a while, they will also take the time to investigate what agricultural education at their school looked like before 1928, and beyond its involvement with the FFA.
Works Cited
Bradford, H. E. (1917). Agricultural education in Nebraska (Publication Number EP32685) [M.A., The University of Nebraska – Lincoln]. Dissertations & Theses @ University of Nebraska – Lincoln; ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I. United States — Nebraska. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAIEP32685/
Clements, L. D. (1963). A History of the Agricultural Division of the Department of Vocational Education. Dept. of Vocational Education, College of Agriculture, University of Nebraska.
Frolik, E. F., & Graham, R. J. (1987). University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Agriculture: The First Century. University of Nebraska-Lincoln. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/ianrhistory/
Loeffel, W. J., Baker, M. L., & Arthaud, V. H. (1962). Animal Husbandry Through the Years at the University of Nebraska, 1910-1962. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1035&context=animalscinews
McCreight, M. G. (1973). History of Vocational Agriculture in Nebraska. Dept. of Agricultural Education, College of Agriculture University of Nebraska.
Tummons, J. D., Simonsen, J. C., & Martin, M. J. (2017). Role of the Agricultural Industry and Judging Events in Formation of the Future Farmers of America. Journal of Agricultural Education, 58(1), 236–250. https://doi.org/10.5032/jae.2017.01236