Writer: Karie Fehler (409) 862-1556, ksf5815@unix.tamu.edu
Contact: Dr. Charles T. Hallmark (979) 845-4678, hallmark@tamu.edu
COLLEGE STATION –For the first time in United States history, an all women’s soils judging team captured the National Soils Judging Contest title. The contest, held in Athens, Ga., this month, consisted of 16 teams who qualified by placing in the top third at their regional contests last fall.
Dr. Tom Hallmark, professor of soil science and the team’s coach, said the contest began in the early 1960s, and this is the first time an all girl team has won the championship. The win also marks Texas A&M’s first National Soils Judging Contest title in 35 years.
“We took our students to the regional competition in Stephenville last fall and the top four from Texas A&M just happened to be women,” he said. “It’s really great that they were the first all girls team to win the national championship. They are all very competent and able to judge well.”
The winning team members, Christine Smith of Hearne, Jennifer Minning of Austin, Natalie Pogue of New Braunfels and Summer Sorley of Houston, are all graduating seniors. Hallmark said the judging contest requires experience working under pressure, and the women performed well.
“This competition takes a certain amount of experience to judge, and it helped that each of the girls had a few national competitions under their belt,” he said. “Natalie was our youngster with only two competitions, but they all did extremely well.”
Hallmark said he hopes to make it to the championship next year in Arizona.
“Even though we’ll have to start from scratch next year with a young team, I hope we’ll place high enough in regionals to make it to Arizona,” he said.
Preparation for the judging contest is extensive, though the students are not able to “practice” judging until they see the soil in the area of the competition.
“The competition is based on the soil specific to the area where the contest is, so it was hard to really practice since our soil is so much different than Georgia’s,” Hallmark said. “We practice determining soil texture, refining our skills in reading soil color, and learning the guidelines for the contest.”
The Texas A&M team arrived in Georgia four days before the contest for final preparation studying the soil content and profiles.
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