Newspaper Article 1982 – Contestants face busy day

Contestants face busy day

Waipukurau is the venue for next Friday’s Skellerup Young Farmer of the Year East Coast regional finals.

Organisers of the event, the Central Hawke’s Bay district committee of Young Farmers, expect about 300 people to attend the evening session of the contest in the Civic Theatre.

Ten contestants, representing the eight Young Farmers districts from Gisborne to the Wairarapa, will be taking part in the event.

Among them will be two from Central Hawke’s Bay – Geoff Hornblow, Onga Onga, and Richard Ellis, Tikokino, both members of the Tikokino Young Farmers Club – and two from the Heretaunga district – Blair Gibson and David Ward.

The winner will receive a two unit VHF radio telephone and go forward, with the winners from six other regions, to the 5 televised national finals at Christchurch on August 6.

The ten candidates face a long, hard day on Friday, beginning at 8am on the Onga Onga Road property of one of the organisers, Mr John Jamieson.

A crowd of between 60 and 80 are expected to be at the farm to see the contestants put through their practical paces.

They will be asked to perform various farm tasks, such as stock handling, construction work and woolhandling, to prove they have a grasp of the practical skills of their trade as well as the theory.

The practical session will end at about 4pm after which there will be a break, and time for dinner, before the contest resumes in the Civic Theatre at 7.30pm.

There the contestants will face four rounds of questions and one round of identifying slide pictures.  The top four finalists will then go into the last stage of the competition which involves one further round of questions and two rounds of making 90 second speeches on given topics.

The evening session judges – Br [Mr] Bill Crawford, of the Ministry of Agriculture, Hastings, Mr Ewan McGregor, provincial president of Federated Farmers, and Mr Tony Middleberg, a Waipukurau veterinarian – should be in a position to announce the name of the winner by about 10pm.

Six girls are taking part in the East Coast Miss Young Farmer finals, being run in conjunction with the main event.

Local hope is Dale Mackie, a 19 year old farm assistant from Onga Onga, who is already well known throughout Central Hawke’s Bay after winning last year’s Waipukurau Show Week Queen contest.

Dale, secretary of the Tikokino Young Farmers, and the other girls will also be judged on their practical knowledge during the day, and in the evening they will be introduced and interviewed on stage at the theatre.

The winning girl will go through to the national finals where the first prize is a trip to the Royal Show at Sydney next Easter.