FFA Dairy Foods Competition

by Meredith Penczek

Recently, the Paris FFA Chapter sent six freshmen students to the Dairy Foods Competition. The participating students were Bailey Lawson, Cole Shonk, Shaylyn Phillips, Dustin Eslinger, Deveny Gill, and Dalton Hall. The Dairy Foods Competition judges the participants ability to taste different cheeses, grade quality, and tell between actual dairy products and imitation.

Out of the six participants, four placed in the top ten individually. Paris got second overall. They got second by eight points to Georgetown. Dalton Hall (pictured above) placed second individually. Deveny Gill placed third. Cole Shonk tied for sixth. Dustin Eslinger got eighth. Dustin was able to get all the types of cheeses right. The team was supervised by Miss Lindsay Hewitt.

The team met after school to practice. Practice consisted of tasting the cheeses and other dairy products. The team would then guess the cheeses. There were fourteen cheeses ranging from Colby to Mozzarella. The team also had to tell the difference between soy milk, almond milk, whole milk, and skim milk.

The team celebrated with pizza in Ms. Hewitt’s room a few days later at school. All in all, the dairy judging team had a good run this year and is hoping to place first next year.