Gila Ridge FFA places third at national turfgrass competition in Fort Worth

Gila Ridge High School’s FFA chapter sent seven students to Fort Worth, Texas, and returned with a third-place finish and an eighth-place finish at the National Turfgrass Science Invitational, KAWC reported. The results underscore a growing pipeline from local agricultural education to turf-management careers that can benefit Yuma County’s parks, courses and groundskeeping employers.

The four-student squad that earned third place consisted of Blake Johnson, Trent Karvoski, Gavin Schreiber and Gage Sullivan. The three-student squad of Cooper Caddell, Allen Lopez Enriquez and Chris Inglett placed eighth despite competing “with a points disadvantage due to a missing team member,” KAWC reported. KAWC also said the finishes were “out of 20 teams across the nation” and placed the competition in Fort Worth on Jan. 20.

The Invitational tests a mix of classroom and hands-on turf skills. KAWC described several practicum stations: “Some practicum stations required students to identify industry-relevant tools, turfgrass plants and insects that can be either beneficial or harmful to turf systems. Other exercises involved repairing turf and irrigation systems and calibrating sprayers used for turf maintenance.” KYMA’s Home Grown report added that judging included identification of seeds, tools and chemicals and tasks such as applying fertilizer to grass. Those exercises mirror the plant-science, soil-science and chemistry foundations of turf management taught in agricultural education programs.

Career credentials are already flowing from Gila Ridge’s program. KYMA quoted student Gage Sullivan saying, "Everybody on our team got a certification through ICEV, it was for turf grass and a lot of us are interested in the golf course industry because of this competition and because of its certification." KYMA noted the certification “is designed to give students skills for careers in turf space, such as golf course management or sports turf,” signaling a direct link between classroom work and local labor-market needs.

Gila Ridge Career and Technical Education agriculture instructor Laramie Pruit praised the students’ commitment: “I am beyond proud of my students and their efforts in this year’s turf competition. From focused study during school practices to countless hours spent preparing outside of class, these students dedicated hundreds of hours to this competition. These young men demonstrated exceptional dedication to their studies and represented our FFA chapter and community with excellence at the national level," KAWC quoted Pruit.

For national context, GCMonline described the Invitational as “the first-ever National Turfgrass Science Invitational, an FFA Career Development Event,” reporting teams of students from multiple states and listing participating states including Alabama, Arizona, California, Kansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Wisconsin. GCMonline said 60 students competed and named Avery County (N.C.) and Fallbrook (Calif.) among the top finishers; GCMonline also reported individual winners Aaron King, Eli Church and Alice Powell. Those national accounts differ from KAWC’s “20 teams” figure, a discrepancy in participant counts and timeline that organizers can clarify.

For Yuma County, the immediate takeaway is economic as much as athletic: seven students trained in turf science return with national credentials and practical skills that local employers can hire into groundskeeping, course maintenance and sports-turf roles. Gila Ridge’s back-to-back national competitiveness and the ICEV certifications position students to fill technical openings where credentialed workers are in demand, and they signal a maturing career-education pipeline for the region. KAWC noted its reporting was supported by a grant from the Arizona Local News Foundation.