The Broken Bow FFA Chapter Livestock Judging Team met with great success when they traveled to Ord on Wednesday, October 8 for the Nebraska District 8 Livestock Judging competition.
The Junior Division team took the District Championship, with Broken Bow’s Hayden Christen the individual Champion in the Division, and Regan Babcock the Division Runner-up.
The Junior High team took 5th place in the team standings, with Isabella Faltys taking the individual Champion’s spot. Arianna Pate placed 4th individually in the Senior Division.
Over 600 students from across Central Nebraska competed in the event. The 37 Broken Bow students evaluated sets of 10 animals in different categories and were required to defend their rankings to a panel of judges at the end of each event.
Broken Bow FFA Advisor Caleb tenBensel described the process to KCNI/KBBN for both meat and breeding classes.
“Students have to learn basically how to evaluate livestock using a set of criteria,” said tenBensel. “They evaluate cattle, hogs, sheep and goat species looking for markets traits, sifting through a set of criteria to figure out which one is the best based on those features.”
The results are a high mark for a group that hasn’t sent a team to state competition in at least 8 years.
According to tenBensel, “If my records are correct, Broken Bow hadn’t qualified a livestock judging team for state competition since 2017 as of last year. And so, we’re really excited to have followed it up with as good of a performance with our junior division as we did this year.”
Students on the State-qualified Junior Team will have a chance to showcase their livestock knowledge at the State FFA Convention in Lincoln in late March 2026. Full Broken Bow Livestock Judging Results are below.
