By Victoria Pilger

LUBBOCK – The Texas A&M Wool Judging team competed at the Texas Invitational Wool Contest in Lubbock and won every division including grading rails, placing classes and reasons.

The team secured 12 of the top 15 high individual awards in the contest. Texas A&M competed against Texas Tech University, Angelo State University and New Mexico State University.

“We have a great group of kids, and I could not have asked them to perform any better than they did at this stage of the game.  We’re constantly working and looking forward to the spring contest,” said Tanner Wieghat, graduate student and team coordinator.

Team members are Kylie Bennett, Bridget O’Brien, Sierra Francis, Courtney Hancock, Kade Hodges, Samantha Jansen, Indiana Jones, Chase Long, Tana Luna, Shelby Martin, Mariel McFadin, Brooke Orsak, Brandi Ortolon, Jace Reynolds, Alexis Roach, Logan Speck and Emily Willingham.

In individual competition, O’Brien won second place high individual, followed by Francis, third; Bennett, fifth; Luna, sixth; Willingham, seventh; and Hodges, eighth.

The team is coached by Wieghat and Dr. Shawn Ramsey. Assistant coaches include Garrett Stribling, Emily Von Edwins and Erika Wiggs.

The team will travel to Denver, Colorado on January 16 to compete at the National Western Stock Show in the Wool Judging Contest.

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Victoria Pilger is a junior Animal Science major with a minor in Agricultural Communications and Journalism from Bryan, Texas.

For more information regarding news from the Department of Animal Science, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Texas A&M University, please contact Courtney Coufal at cacoufal@tamu.edu or (979) 845-1542.