Riata Bultje competed at the FFA District 4 Leadership Development Events (LDE) Competition in Mitchell Monday, November 13th. Other chapters that competed at the District 4 competition included Bon Homme, Bridgewater- Emery, Burke-Gregory County, Chamberlain, Colome, Ethan, Kimball, McCook Central, Mitchell, Parkston, Platte-Geddes, Sandborn Central/Woonsocket, Scotland, Wagner and Winner. Riata competed in the Prepared Public Speaking event and placed third, which advances her to the State FFA LDE Competition to be held on December 3rd and 4th at the Monument in Rapid City.

The Prepared Public Speaking event is a contest where each contestant prepares a 6–8-minute informational speech and then gives a presentation in front of a 3-4 panel of judges. The contestant has to provide the judges with a manuscript of their speech in order for the judges to see where the student has sourced their information. Following the presentation, the panel of judges will ask questions about the content of the speech for a maximum of five minutes. Then the judges will score the student overall on the manuscript, presentation quality and question responses.

Contestants have complete freedom on the topic of their prepared public speaking event as long as it agricultural related. Riata chose to make her speech about the benefits of incorporating soil health practices into farm work. The key elements of her speech included keeping soil covered, limiting tillage, having plant diversity, living roots and livestock integration. Riata’s speech was seven and half minutes in length. The majority of her speech was sourced from information provided from the South Dakota Soil Health Coalition and their resources about soil health management.

Riata’s father, Brice, had a big influence on her interest in the soil health practices. He started learning about the benefit of soil health through the Soil Health Coalition a few years ago and has since integrated some of the practices into his own farming. Being able to help out her dad and learn first-hand about these practices has taught her so much about how to maintain healthy soil. Gathering the information for her speech came pretty easy since she already had first-hand experience and knowledge on the topic.

This was Riata’s first year competing in the prepared public speaking event and her first time qualifying for the state competition. In previous years, Bultje has competed in Creed Speaking, where the FFA creed is recited in front of a panel of judges; Agricultural Broadcasting, where mock news radio broadcasts are done with news agricultural articles, markets and an advertisement; and Employment Skills, where the contestant goes through and is judged on the complete hiring process with a resume, application, cover letter and interview.

Congratulations Riata! Best of luck at the State Competition.