With prices peaking at more than $14,000, landscape trailers can get costly. But senior Jake Monell and junior Tommy Carter didn’t spend any more than the cost of supplies as they built their own landscape trailer.

The work paid off when the two Future Farmers of America members earned the title of Reserve Champion at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, one of the largest mechanics contests in Texas.

“Leading up to the Agricultural Mechanics show we prepared by reviewing all materials used along with getting ready to answer all the judge’s questions and in the end, it did feel really good to win,” Monell said. “It’s a really big deal to win any show, but this one especially because it’s the biggest rodeo in the world and we won $50,000 worth of tools.”

The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo has multiple areas of competition, in which projects get judged in individual categories first and if selected for advancement, they get scored to compete for the best overall project in the entire competition. 

FFA sponsor Brittney Avant attributes the student’s achievement to their motivation and dedication to their year-long trailer project.

“They spend every waking moment they have to make their project as good as possible,” Avant said. “They spent two class periods working on it in the shop, spent Thanksgiving break working on it, more than half of Christmas break up, a good chunk of spring break and more. One of their goals was to be highly successful and it’s clear that they definitely achieved that.”

The award was not an easy feat to achieve according to Monell as they persevered through countless failures along the way.

“The most important thing I attribute to our success was our teamwork and not giving up. A lot of stuff didn’t work the first time and we had to keep redoing it but eventually, we got it to work.”

Apart from mechanics, other members such as junior Carsyn Bianchin competed in a swine project, noting that the recent competition provided her with valuable experiences.

“I think that this experience is great for me personally as my overall goal in life is to become a vet and having knowledge on different animals like large animals overall helps my personal knowledge grow on this subject,” Bianchin said. “I think it is a great idea to show an animal whether it is a swine project, a goat, a lamb or even a cow because it gives you hands-on experience that someone would not typically get, especially in a very urbanized area like Frisco.”