Pictured (back to front, left to right): John Mather, Cassy Hollifield, Joel Pritchett, Tracy Pardue, Amanda Burrell, Cody Turpin, Tommy Etheridge, Joe Garmon, Johnny Payne, Chance Young, Jess Owens, Tori Shedd, Craig Thurmond. Kneeling: Cary Galloway, Scarlett Kilby.
(Clarkesville, GA) — NGTC horticulture students brought home several distinguished awards including a team ranking of 16th in the nation after competing in the 40th annual National Collegiate Landscape Competition held at Mississippi State University this past weekend.
Thirteen horticulture students competed in 28 events against 63 schools from both two-year and four-year colleges and universities. NGTC students placed first, second and third in three individual events and in the top 20 nationally in several other events.
The NGTC team made us all very proud and reminded all of us that even though we are a small school we are capable of competing and holding our own with the biggest and the best national horticulture programs,” said Craig Thurmond, NGTC environmental horticulture instructor.
“We competed against universities like Michigan State University, BYU, Penn State, Ohio State, Auburn, North Carolina State, The University of Georgia, Virginia Tech, Kansas State and Mississippi State just to name a few. I had several national officials express to me that they can’t believe that we can compete at the national level being a two-year school with the smaller total enrollment than these larger universities. This proves that our hard work over the past four years has paid off and now NGTC is being mentioned with the best horticulture programs in the nation.”
The top three national event winners were Scarlett Kilby of Rabun Gap who placed second in Annual and Perennial Identification and third in Interior Plant Identification. Jess Owens of Clayton placed first in the NCLC Logo National Selection. Owens’ logo was selected and used for all the participants’ conference t-shirts.
Kilby also earned an overall national student ranking of 21, and Tommy Etheridge of Lavonia earned a 24th national rank.
Students who received rankings in the top 20 for individual events include Tracy Pardue of Mt. Airy and Cary Galloway of Clayton who ranked 18th in Employee Development; Owens ranked15th in Interior Landscape Design; Etheridge and Chance Young of Summerville ranked 15th in Irrigation Troubleshooting; Kilby and Etheridge ranked 10th in Landscape Maintenance Operation; Joe Garmon of Maysville ranked 12th in Sales; Cody Turpin of Alto ranked 20th in Skid Steer Operation; Owens ranked 11th in Small Engine; Kilby ranked 10th in Woody Plant Identification.
Turpin also earned a national ranking of 62 in the top 100 overall students.
Other students who contributed to NGTC’s national rank included Cassy Hollifield of Clayton; Amanda Burrell of Clayton; Tori Shedd of Clarkesville; Joel Pritchett of Cleveland; Johnny Payne of Blairsville.
For more information regarding the horticulture program at NGTC, call 706-754-7700 or visit northgatech.edu.
