St Paul’s Collegiate School students Quinn Bowie (Year 12) and Brad Edwards (Year 12) competed in the national TeenAg competition in Timaru in July.
The pair were selected for the competition after placing second in the Waikato and Bay of Plenty regional finals. The TeenAg competition consists of teams from high schools all around New Zealand who must complete a series of agriculture-related tasks across one day.
On the night before the competition, Quinn and Brad attended the opening ceremony which was held down the main street of Timaru where competitors had to dress-up in a costume. The boys managed to win this event dressed as St Paul’s bees.
On the day of competition the first task the boys had to complete was an hour long exam written by Lincoln University.
“The exam was largely based on economics, which proved to be a harder task than expected”, they said.
They then had to complete eight other modules which included tasks such as:
- driving a quad bike through an obstacle course and backing it with a trailer;
- showing ways of loading a stock truck and filling out a NAIT sheet; and
- a two minute speech on the importance of agriculture to New Zealand.
After a long day, the pair attended the prize giving but unfortunately did not place. However, they are both looking forward to competing next year.
“The time away was a great experience and we would recommend anyone who is interested to give it a go!”
