Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By Carey Reeder | Managing Editor

The Chilton County Farm-City Committee is getting students involved again during this year’s Farm-City Month celebration in November with three different student contests. With this year’s theme “Our Community Counts on Farmers” as the focal point — essay, poster and video contests for students will be held in Chilton County schools. Each school will be awarded a first, second and third place 4-H ribbon in each contest. Overall county winners will receive monetary prizes and be recognized at the Chilton County Farm-City Banquet at the Clanton Conference and Performing Arts Center (1850 Lay Dam Road, Clanton) on Nov. 19 at 6 p.m.

The contests encourage teachers and students to take a closer look at the impact of agriculture in their local areas, and feature local farmer’s impact. All while tying back to the overall theme.

The poster contest will have two divisions — kindergarten-third grade and fourth-sixth grades. The poster must be the student’s original work, and be in horizontal format on a 11×14 to 22×28 size poster board. Judging for the contest will be based on creativity, originality, neatness, overall appearance and relevance to the theme. The first-place student and their classroom in each division will receive $100, the second-place student and classroom $75 and the third-place student and classroom $50. A member of the Chilton County Farm-City Committee will pick up the posters on Sept. 27.

The essay contest will have two divisions in it as well — division I for students grades seventh-ninth and division II for students grade 10th-12th. Guidelines for the essay entries include keeping them between 500-1,000 words, typed and double spaced. The essays will be judged on content such as topic sentences, adhering to the theme, accuracy of information in the essay, supporting details, originality and reader appeal. They will also be judged on mechanics such as grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, capitalization and spelling, as well as organization such as clarity, flow of material and conclusion. The first-place student and their classroom in each division will receive $100, the second-place student and classroom $75 and the third-place student and classroom $50. A member of the Chilton County Farm-City Committee will pick up the essays on Sept. 27.

The video contest entries were collected on Sept. 2, and they were open for ninth-12th grade students. The students created a three-minute max video related to the theme with images, audio and narration that was uploaded to YouTube. Judging is based on content, adhering to the theme, accuracy of information, appearance, originality and production. Students were responsible for making sure their videos did not violate any copyright laws. Awards handed out will be $100 for the first-place student, $75 for the second-place student and $50 for the third-place student.

For more information on the three contests, contact Lucy Edwards at lee0003@auburn.edu or call 205-280-6268.