Kloey Miller, Neil Arnorld, Addison Haines and Morgan Wicker demonstrate how they prepared to identify plants for the 2025 West Virginia State FFA CDE (Career Development Event) competition held at West Virginia State University in April. The group won first place in Agronomy. (Photo by Douglass Huxley)

PARKERSBURG – Four students in the Agricultural Sciences program at the Wood County Tech Center came home last month with a first place finish from the 2025 West Virginia State FFA CDE (Career Development Event) competition held at West Virginia State University.

Sophomore Kloey Miller, freshmen Neil Arnorld and Morgan Wicker, who are all in the Intro to Agriculture class, and junior Addison Haines, who is in the science of agriculture and animal production courses, were awarded first place for Agronomy. This is the first time a group from the WCTC has won since 2005.

“I challenged them to try to end that 20-year drought, and these students really took that to heart.” Agricultural Education Instructor Ben Goff said. “Because I think every one of them has been frustrated at some point, tired, burned out, and they’d come back the next day and just hit it again.”

The competition tested participants in challenging areas including soil testing, insect identification, plant identification and disorder recognition. The group was even surprised by a written exam.

“We knew going into the competition that things wouldn’t be exactly as we expected,” Haines said. “So it was kind of just that feeling that, yeah, there’s going to be things we haven’t seen before, but we didn’t know it was going to be there.”

Addison Haines, Morgan Wicker, Neil Arnorld and Kloey Miller pose with the first place Agronomy plagues the group won during the 2025 West Virginia State FFA CDE (Career Development Event) competition held at West Virginia State University in April. (Photo by Douglass Huxley)

Each competitor completed tests and challenges in these different stations, with careful separation between team members to prevent collaboration.

“Everybody does their tests, and those parts of the competition are where you get your scores,” Arnold said.

Those individual scores were then added together with other group members for an overall team score. And although Arnorld was awarded first place individually, the entire group said it was the team win that meant the most.

“Dr. Goff has always preached to us, all four of us actually, that teams go to Nationals, individuals do not,” Haines said. “So it didn’t matter what all of us placed individually, but all of us together is what really won this competition, and we couldn’t do it without each other.”

The group said they see this as more than just a one-time win. They said it has the potential to be a turning point for their chapter.

“This team win will be a change in our chapter,” Wicker said. “Others are seeing us succeed, and hopefully they’ll hop on that bandwagon and succeed with us.”

With this win, the team received an invitation to compete at the national competition scheduled to be held in Indianapolis in the fall.The group said they have set an ambitious goal for that competition.

“We want to be the first West Virginia state team to win nationals in our category,” Wicker said.

Goff said regardless of the outcome, he feels his students have already won.

“No matter what, I’m happy for them,” Goff said. “Seeing them take on the material and really devote themselves, and seeing the progress they made – I couldn’t be more proud.”