UMaine Students Excel in Northeast Regional Dairy Challenge
Contact: David Marcinkowski, 207-581-2740
Editors’ note: Release contains names of students from Bangor, Berwick, China, Eliot, Orono, Sebec and New Gloucester.
ORONO — Ten animal science students from the University of Maine recently brought home gold and platinum awards after competing in the Northeast Regional Intercollegiate Dairy Challenge in Norwich, New York.
UMaine student Mike Brown of China, Maine, competed on a team that received the highest award, platinum. Emily Hastings of Bangor and Josh Bergstrom of Orono competed on teams that won gold awards, the second highest.
They and fellow students Emily Hastings of Bangor, Matt Rolleston of Sebec, Kara Pietroski of Thomaston, Ken Hoyt of Eliot, Tom Lund of New Gloucester, Stephanie Beamish of Berwick, Jennianne O’Connor of Middleboro, Mass. and Katelyn Romano of Rowley, Mass. are students in the Department of Animal and Veterinary Sciences. Associate professor and extension dairy specialist David Marcinkowski coached the students, who are now looking forward to the national competition in Twin Falls, Idaho in April.
All together, 110 students from 13 agricultural universities throughout the Northeast competed in the contest, which was hosted by SUNY Morrisville. Students from the different universities were assigned randomly to nearly 30 teams.
The Dairy Challenge is a two-day competition that enables students to apply theory and learning to a real-world dairy, while working as part of a team.
Teams of four students each received production and farm management data from a real working dairy. After an inspection of the farm, participants interviewed the farm manager and then developed a farm analysis and presentation, including recommendations for nutrition, reproduction, milking procedures, animal health, housing and financial management. On the second day, team members presented recommendations to a panel of judges and fielded questions from the judges. Presentations were evaluated, based on their analysis and recommendations.
The challenge was held in late October.