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The West Virginia University Soil Judging Team recently traveled to Springfield, Mo. to compete in the National Collegiate Soil Judging Contest where it placed fifth in the group judging event, the team’s best-ever finish in that part of the competition.

Twenty-four universities competed in the event, and WVU joined teams from the University of Tennessee-Martin, the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, the University of Kentucky, North Carolina State University, and Tennessee Tech University in representing the Southeast Region.

The six-member team includes Victoria Bishop, an agribusiness management and rural development major from Moorefield, W.Va.; Katey Buckland, an environmental protection major from St. Albans, W.Va.; Josh Hall, an agronomy major from Charleston, W.Va.; Jared Jackson, a wildlife and fisheries resources major from Elkins, W.Va.; Chris Orndorff, an agronomy major from Charmco, W.Va.; and Sarah Taylor, an agronomy major from Petersburg, W.Va. All are students in WVU’s Davis College of Agriculture, Forestry and Consumer Sciences.

Despite having only two students with previous experience at the national level, Jim Thompson, the team’s faculty adviser and associate professor of soils and land use in the Davis College’s Division of Plant and Soil Sciences, said they performed well. All four individual judgers finished in the top third with Taylor’s eighth-place finish leading the way. Hall placed 13th; Orndorff placed 22nd; and Buckland placed 32nd to round out the field for WVU.

Those individual rankings, combined with the fifth-place finish in the group competition, earned the team third place overall and the highest ranking for a school from the Southeast Region. WVU was edged out by Kansas State University and Purdue University, first and second place respectively.

“I am extremely proud of the accomplishments of all of these students,” Thompson said. “Over the last four years our students have established WVU as a top team in both the Southeast Region and nationally, with four consecutive top-five finishes and five top-ten individual finishers at the National Contest.”

WVU placed fifth in 2008, third in 2007 and first in 2006.

“I believe this speaks to the quality of the training that these students receive from the Division of Plant and Soil Sciences,” he said. “It also reflects the overall strength of the academic programs across the Davis College, because the Soils Team includes students from three different academic divisions, Plant and Soil Sciences, Forestry and Natural Resources, and Resource Management.”