Minnesota, Virginia Tech, and Cobleskill win at Louisville

Minnesota 4-H'ers swept the Youth Contest with individuals placing first, second, fourth, and tenth place at the 36th North American International Livestock Exposition. The actual contest was held Sunday with the results being announced Monday morning. With four in the top ten, the Minnesota 4-H topped second place New York by 29 points. Shown in the photo are coach Molly Neil; Maria Pieper, second place individual; Jennifer Vanderwal, fourth individual; Jessie Bester, tenth individual; Caitlin Durow, high individual; and coach Krista Sheehan. In all, there were 22 teams in the Youth Contest. Third place team, Michigan 4-H, won reasons while Abbey Wethal from Wisconsin 4-H was high in reasons.

In the Collegiate division, Virginia Tech kept its winning streak from World Dairy Expo alive by winning the college contest which featured teams from 16 schools. Pacing the Virginia Tech team was the duo of Caitlin Patrick and Dana Gochenour. Patrick had a score of 718 or a 47.9 average for ten classes and five sets of reasons, while Gochenour was just five points behind. Second place University of Wisconsin-Madison won reasons with team member Chelsea Holschbach winning, talking her way to top reasons honors with a 46.6-point average.

Taking home the Post-Secondary Championship was New York State University at Cobleskill with a score of 2044. That team featured the eighth (Ben Bemis), ninth (Ariel Garland), and tenth (Elizabeth Trombly) place individuals. In second was the Ohio State ATI team which won World Dairy Expo. Taking home high individual honors was George Costa, Jr., who averaged 47.1 for his Modesto College team. He also won reasons with a 46.6 point average. The Modesto Team won reasons.