Richland Community College agriculture students recently competed in the Illinois Professional Agriculture Students (PAS) annual conference in Springfield.

PAS is a student-led organization that allows students to build and sharpen their skills through competitive style learning and real-life application. The conference included competitions in public speaking, mock employment interviews, agriculture sales presentations, discussion meet, and numerous agriculture-specific team competitions that included general knowledge exams, problem-solving scenarios and current-issue student presentations.

  • Gabriel Sams competed in prepared public speaking and Eric Briceno; Erzsebet Getz, Austin Mendenhall, and Coby Pope competed in the Employment Interview competition.
  • Eric Briceno placed 2nd in the Forestry and Natural Resources area of the Employment Interview.
  • Erzsebet Getz placed 2nd in the Landscaping and Nursery area of the Employment Interview.

The Richland Community College Agriculture program is comprised of an Associate in Arts (transfer degree) and Associate in Applied Science degrees in Agribusiness, Crop Science, and Horticulture.  Richland’s campus includes 40+ acres of farmland, we are the host of the Farm Progress Show every other year, and we are located in the Agribusiness capital of the world, all which help enable the agriculture program to meet our mission of exposing, preparing, and connecting students to careers in Agriculture.