The Mineola FFA ag advocacy team has won the state championship, held Saturday at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville.

The team of Sunni Ruffin, Ava Johnson (seniors) and Mylee Fischer (junior) earned a large state banner that will hang in the high school when it arrives, along with their photo.

They presented a program about a train trip around Texas to highlight the top agriculture products in each of the five regions: south, central, west and north and arriving at East Texas.

After the presentation they spent about five minutes answering judges’ questions.

Ag teacher D.J. Wernecke explained that Mineola has a long tradition in FFA contests of stressing public speaking, which coupled with a creative script helps the teams to be competitive.

Wernecke noted that in addition to Mineola’s win, three other high schools in the county placed teams at state, something that is rare for one county.

And the teams don’t just compete against similar-sized schools. They go up against students from the largest schools in the state.

The team starts working on their project the first day of school and attends four to five invitational meets to hone their skills.

Then they compete at district against more than 20 schools, with three advancing to area. Wernecke said the Mineola district is one of the toughest in the area.

There are 12 areas in the state, each of which sends two teams to the state contest.

The girls also received gold pins for their FFA jackets and will be earning scholarships through Texas FFA.

The Mineola team was coached by Rocio Martinez and Wernecke.

Several other Wood County teams also found success at the state contest in Leadership Development Events.

The senior FFA quiz team from Quitman placed 3rd, with Kendall Davis fourth place and Christi Adamson taking fifth individually.

Quitman’s senior agricultural skills team placed 8th, and the Alba-Golden senior chapter conducting team also placed 8th.

The Winnsboro greenhand chapter conducting team placed 7th.