On October 25, the Stevens FFA Horse Evaluation team became the National Champions at the 98th National FFA Convention & Expo in Indianapolis, Indiana. These students achieved great individual rankings as well. Stevens senior Patty Timmons earned silver, and 2024 graduates Ethan Hendrix, Kaiva Coleman, and Elliot Hendrix earned gold rankings. In addition, Elliot brought home a 10th-place overall finish.
The contest was a lot bigger than what the team was used to. Patty Timmons explained, “We judged twice as many classes, and gave 2 more sets of reasons than we normally do. We had what they refer to as a keep cull class, which is really just an advance or non-advance class. Then we had a team scenario, which we had never done before so that was new and involved giving an oral presentation to a judge.”
The journey to the national stage started about 3 years ago when the all-freshmen team placed 9th out of 30 teams. As the years went on their effort continued to grow. The team continued to get 2nd place at the state contest in both 2022 and 2023. Coleman said, “My senior year [last school year] was when my team and I, we kind of decided like yes we are going to win this thing.”
After winning the State Contest in April 2024, the game was on as this group of students got prepared for the National Convention. They even made the journey to Oklahoma City for the American Quarter Horse Youth Association World Showcase, where they got to experience a different judging setting. “I had to trust my team and we all just had to trust each other that we were practicing and putting in the work once we all went off to college,” Coleman said when asked how their practice changed after the school year started. That is because they had to change their course of action due to 3 of the team members being at college.
All of their hard work and dedication paid off in the end, as they heard their names be called the National Champions. “They are the first team that’s ever won it from the state of South Dakota, and the first team to win any competition since 2006,” the team’s coach and advisor, Genetie Hendrix said.
These students have found out that being national champions opens a gateway to new opportunities. Hendrix said, “They did receive a monetary award for winning, and there were multiple colleges that reached out to each of the team members inviting them to come check out the programs.” One of the team members, Ethan Hendrix, accepted an offer to join West Texas A&M’s collegiate Horse Evaluation team.
