STEPHENVILLE, Texas \u2014 Tarleton State University will welcome more than 11,000 Texas Future Farmers of America members for Invitational Career Development Event (CDE) judging contests on Thursday, March 26.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This marks the 54th year for Tarleton State\u2019s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources to host the statewide FFA invitational, the largest in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Approximately 1,800 ag science teachers representing 525 Texas high schools will accompany the FFA members. Several hundred Tarleton State students will assist as group leaders and contest mentors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The invitational is a practice round, preparing students for team judging in a variety of categories. FFA members compete in 18 contests: ag sales, dairy cattle, entomology, environmental and natural resources, farm business management, floriculture, homesite evaluation, horse, land, livestock, meats, milk quality and products, nursery\/landscape, poultry, range, veterinary science, wildlife, and wool. Events will be held across the Stephenville campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The top 20 in each judging category will receive a plaque and other prizes. Several $2,000 scholarships will be awarded, along with a $3,000 sweepstakes agricultural scholarship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The invitational is the largest of three CDE contests Tarleton State will host this spring. The university will welcome high school students again April 8 for area FFA contests and April 23 for state FFA competition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For more information, call 254-968-9020 or email damerau@tarleton.edu<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" STEPHENVILLE, Texas \u2014 Tarleton State University will welcome more than 11,000 Texas Future Farmers of America members for Invitational Career Development Event (CDE) judging contests on Thursday, March 26. This …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":54928,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","wds_primary_category":425,"footnotes":""},"categories":[422,425],"tags":[436,442,456],"class_list":["post-54927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-morestories","category-campus-community","tag-college-of-agriculture-natural-resources","tag-community-events","tag-stephenville"],"acf":{"image":false},"author_meta":{"display_name":"priddle","author_link":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/author\/priddle-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/65\/2026\/03\/FFA-CDE-Invitational-300x200.png","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["_morestories<\/a>","Campus & Community<\/a>"],"unlinked":["_morestories<\/span>","Campus & Community<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["College of Agriculture & Natural Resources<\/a>","Community Events<\/a>","Stephenville<\/a>"],"unlinked":["College of Agriculture & Natural Resources<\/span>","Community Events<\/span>","Stephenville<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":0,"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 3 weeks ago","modified":"Updated 1 day ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on March 23, 2026","modified":"Updated on April 9, 2026"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on March 23, 2026 8:00 am","modified":"Updated on April 9, 2026 2:11 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54927"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54937,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54927\/revisions\/54937"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}