On April 13, the horticulture students traveled to the Pickaway County Fairgrounds to compete in the state horticulture competition, a yearly event dedicated to the cultivation of flowers and other ornamental plants in the floral industry. GlenOak High School brought its best four students from the district competition to it.
Tiffany Woods, the Horticulture Career Tech teacher, compiled a list of the challenges these students had to complete during the competition.
“The team of four had to complete an online exam, plant/insect/disease identification, floral supply identification, judge four placing classes, construction of a bud vase and calculate parts per million (PPM) of a fertilizer injector,” Woods said.
As for the challenges themselves, sophomore Makayla Harris, another member of the GlenOak team, recalled them fondly.
“It took a lot of time and dedication, but we pushed through as a strong team,” Harris said.
Senior Daisy Theodore placed 10th in the individual contest out of 279 other contestants. After two years of qualifying for districts but never making it to states, Theodore was excited to show her skill at the fairgrounds.
“I’ve been going to the district competition, and I’ve been a florist since my freshman year. At the state competition, there’s a practical part where you’re making a floral arrangement… those, I’m pretty good at because I’ve been at the district level for so long, and they always kind of had the same thing. So once you know things, you know things,” Theodore said.
The team has expressed how much Woods’ teaching and opportunities have helped them prepare for this competition.
“She taught us the math portion behind how to price the bud vase, because it’s also part of the event. And actually, we didn’t even know that there was a math problem at the district competition, so when we got the news, Mrs. Woods spent 15 minutes trying to explain it to all of us as fast as she could. She’s amazing,” Theodore said.
According to Woods, her students placed 13th as a team out of 69 other schools, foreshadowing a bright future for the students of the horticulture program and their next big endeavor. Students who competed in the event were Daisy Theodore, Ava Hunt, Makayla Harris and Beretta Fernandez.
