It is the day of the big competition and the beautiful weather of the previous days is overcome by a wave of rain and thunderstorms. We head to the Biltmore to find where the competition will be held and join in the caravan of vehicles. Unfortunately the weather led to an accident on the interstate, which delayed the caravan from leaving for about 45 minutes. We sat in our vehicles and watched the rain pour down by the buckets. We finally got to the site and are told that the competition might be delayed even further to let the lightning subside. However most of the vehicle needed to find a bathroom, so we ventured out. By the time we walked to the port-a-potties, we are all drenched by rain. One of the kids said that they weren?t sure if they would be drier with or without the poncho. I felt like I had taken a shower with all of my clothes on. The kids trudged on though. The competition was soon underway and the contestants were faced with about 18 inches of water standing in each hole. The weather finally broke and the reminder of the competition was rain free. They finished up about 1:30pm and the rain started again. We had barbeque at the Cheyenne Arapaho reservation where the contest took place. Everyone was muddy and exhausted, so we cleaned up and rested a bit before going to the Cowboy and Western Museum for the Awards Banquet. We got there with only about 10 minutes to look through the museum before it closed. Then we had to wait until the banquet began. The other West Virginia teams were still at the hotel when we left, but they wanted to sit with us at the banquet. We waited and waited until Roane County?s team finally showed. They said Clay County was behind them. However 15 minutes past and they still hadn?t arrived. When they got to the museum, it turns out that they had been routed off the interstate to wait while a tornado went through the Oklahoma City area. Roane said that they had heard the sirens, but hadn?t seen anything. We hadn?t heard them at the museum. Turns out the tornado went through the area where we had been practicing on Saturday and Sunday. The awards ceremony was nice even though we didn?t take home a trophy. We headed back to the hotel to find the overall scores posted on www.landjudging.com. Everyone began to wind down from the night and prepare for their trips home over the next few days. The people who flew were going to catch a flight at 6:20am and the rest of the group plans to take off by 8am to make the trip back.

The Gilmer County 4-H team placed 8th out of 21 4-H teams in the 2008 National Land Judging Contest. Individually Melissa placed 23rd, Tyler 24th, Allyson 29th, and Emma 42nd out of 79 individuals. The team didn’t practice for homesite judging which led them to a 13th out of 14 place finish. The other West Virginia teams were Clay County 4-H, Clay County FFA, Roane County FFA, and Pine Grove/Valley (Wetzel County) FFA. Clay County 4-H tied for 9th in Land Judging and 4th in Homesite. Clay County FFA placed 3rd in homesite Judging and took home the regional trophy. They tied for 12th in the land judging. Roane County FFA placed 23rd in Land Judging and tied for 21 in Homesite. Pine Grove/Vally FFA placed 37th in Homesite and 88th in Land Judging. There were 43 FFA teams that competed in Homesite Judging and 96 FFA teams in Land Judging.