The 96th Little International  “Live to Leave a Legacy” was held March 29-30 on the SDSU campus through the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences (CAFE).  The activities of Little “I” week represent a culmination of months of work and preparation by a large staff of dedicated students.  Students are responsible for the organization, management and conduct of the entire event.  Little “I” is the largest student-run ag exposition in the U.S. and one of the greatest traditions on the SDSU campus.  Jonathan Linke of Woonsocket was part of the Little “I” Executive Committee as the Assistant Treasurer, and was announced as the 2020 Little “I” Treasurer.  Braedon Hinker served on the Executive Committee and Aaron Linke served as the Scoring and Tabulations Assistant for the Little “I” event.

Little “I” activities throughout the week included dodgeball, Ag Olympics, and Dance in the Chips, all held on the green-colored chips in the show ring.  Various career development events (CDEs) are open to college students, as well as 4-H and high school FFA students, such as natural resources, agronomy, range, meats judging, livestock judging, floriculture, dairy foods judging, wool judging, ag product sales and machinery sales.  Livestock contests are open to SDSU college students including horse, sheep, beef, and goat fitting and horse, sheep, goat, beef, and swine showmanship. 

At the college-level, students compete for the high point award, one for freshmen and one for upperclassmen.  Students are awarded points for the contests they compete in ranging from showing livestock to sales to CDEs.  Nathan Linke of Woonsocket won the SDSU High Point Freshman Award.  Highlights of the win included five first place finishes in the Agronomy, Dairy Foods, Farm Business Management, Range Plant ID, and Seed & Forage Crop Show contests and three second place finishes in Meats, Machinery Sales, and Wool Judging.  Nathan says that his prior FFA CDE experience proved very useful in his quest for the title, and he was inspired by his brother Aaron, the 2018 95th Little “I” High Point Freshman.

…See a picture in this week’s issue of the Sanborn Weekly Journal.