At home in class and on the farm
Agriculture has become a way of life for a group of Feilding High School students.
Dave Reesby, 17, Levi Stewart, 16, Olivia Buick, 16, and Sophie Ridd, 16, were among the top competitors at the recent Teenag grand final in Invercargill.
Levi and Dave were third overall and won the quiz competition, while Sophie and Olivia won the speech competition, where they spoke about alternative proteins.
Sophie and Olivia finished 12th from the 14 teams.
All of them are from rural backgrounds and they are keen to work in the industry once they finish school.
They get out on the farm before and after school, and milking the cows in the morning before school is not uncommon for Stewart.
At the Teenag grand final they had to sit an exam then take part in a practical day, where they had to build a fence, drive a tractor, build a chicken coop, judge stock, operate a small tree harvester and test soil.
Dave said their work on the farm helped them at the competition.
Angus Grant and Nick O’connor, from St Bede’s College in Christchurch, won the overall competition.
To qualify for the national finals, teams had to compete in regional competitions. The Taranaki-manawatu¯ final was an allfeilding High School affair, with Dave and Levi first, Sophie and Olivia second and their schoolmates Phoebe Smails and Anna Simpson third.
Dave and Levi will finish school this year and plan to work on the home farm initially. Levi is heading to work on a farm in the South Island after that.
Olivia and Sophie have another year at school, but both have plans to study agriculture at university.
Sophie thought doing well in this competition would help get their names out there for work.
Joining a young farmers’ club is something they may all consider.
5 minute quiz
1. Which country has had the most fatal shark attacks: Australia, South Africa or the United States?
2. What was the surname of movie brothers named Jake and Elwood?
3. His first names were Vidiadhar Surajprasad and he was a Nobel Prize-winning author. What was his surname?
4. The island of Rhodes is part of what country?
5. What is the more commonly used name for the Whanganui lake known in Ma¯ori as Rotokawau?
6. Where in the human body are the alveoli?
7. Who was the only New Zealand sportsperson to make the National Business Review’s 2018 Rich List?
8. What daffodil takes its name from a character in Greek mythology?
9. Name the year in which civil unions became legal, former prime minister David Lange died and Peter Jackson’s King Kong remake had its premiere.
10. Which famous New Zealand sportsman had the second name Earl?
ANSWERS: