STEM Team Continues to Shine!

The members of our STEM Team continue to shine! After winning the CAT/Altorpher STEM competition last fall, and an impressive showing at the non-competitive Motorola event last spring, they just brought home first place from the 17-team Growmark Challenge. The competition was held at Growmark corporate headquarters in Bloomington, IL and included approximately 50 students from around the state.

The Growmark Challenge was a Job Interview Career Development event designed for students to build and demonstrate skills needed to secure employment in the agricultural industry. The event was organized by the Agriculture STEM Learning Exchange. Each member of our team participated in a formal interview process associated with one of the following positions:

• Marketing Intern
• Agronomy Intern
• Precision Technology Intern

STEM Team members participating in the event included Hunter Aldred, Haley Smith, Garrett Wight, Josh Lacayo, Genesis Poplett, and Ben Warner. It was a tremendous experience, as all developed and displayed the skills necessary to secure a position in the world of work. At the event, our 6-member team was split into two groups for competition. During competition, the group of Hunter Aldred, Haley Smith, and Garrett Wight secured 1st place on behalf of the team. A special shout-out goes to Haley Smith who earned individual first place by scoring higher than all other participants! Great job Haley!

"Their preparation (cover letter, resume, letters of recommendation and research) really paid off," said STEM coach Kathy Wight. "The written feedback our kids received from the judges was extremely valuable. What a great experience for our kids!" Genesis Poplett voiced that there is a lot more prep work that goes into a job interview than she expected. But she quickly pointed out that "it is always better to be over-prepared!"

Huge thanks to Kent Rigg and Kathy Wight for the time and effort they invested into helping our kids get ready. We would also like to express gratitude to everyone who contributed letters of recommendation and to community members Jeff Stiers and Jeff Manthei for helping with mock interviews to prepare our kids for competition. It takes a village. We couldn't be more proud!

Now...time to prepare for the next STEM Challenge. Good luck team!