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Ag Student Among Top 5

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By LIZ BLEAU

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 28, 2008

LITHIA - Newsome High School senior Sara Hutchinson is one of five finalists in the FFA Agriscience Student of the Year competition.

The finalists and their advisers will be recognized during the fifth annual convention of the state FFA in Orlando June 11.

The winner of the Florida contest will compete for the national title at the convention in Indianapolis in October.

To qualify, students must complete an agricultural science project. Hutchinson, a Balm resident who works as a lab assistant at the University of Florida Gulf Coast Research and Education Center in Balm, compared the decomposition of Florida cowpeat, a manure-based product, with Canadian peat, which is mined.

"My project was over six weeks, which was long enough to compare the two peats to see how each did in growing salvia sage for market size," she said.

Information generated from her project has been incorporated into Florida Extension Service programs that address concerns of ornamental plant producers and will be part of scientific papers generated by the Balm research center.

Her project has environmental implications, Hutchinson said, because Canadian peat is nonrenewable, and Florida cowpeat is renewable and helps solve the problem of disposing of large amounts of agricultural waste.

Geoffrey C. Denny, assistant professor of landscape horticulture at the Balm center, said in his recommendation letter, "Sara is an outstanding agriscience student with tremendous potential for a future in the fields of agricultural industry and research."

Hutchinson has been involved in agriculture since her first 4-H project when she was in the first grade. She became interested in livestock in the sixth grade, after seeing a photograph of her mother, Kim, when she was in the sixth grade and showing a prize steer she and raised.

"That how I decided to get involved," Hutchinson said. "So my freshman year of high school I got my first book. Since then, I have been hooked on FFA."

Although her family does not live on a farm, friends do and have allowed Hutchinson and other family members space to raise animals.

For the past three years, Hutchinson has entered a steer and a pig in the Florida State Fair and the Strawberry Festival and has taken home a number of honors.

She plans to attend Hillsborough Community College, Plant City Campus, in the fall and begin studies toward a major in agriculture with a minor in criminal justice. She would someday like to be an agricultural police officer.

Reporter Liz Bleau can be reached at (813) 865-1557 or lbleau@tampatrib.com

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