North Georgia Tech Places in National Horticulture Competition

A Lavonia student at North Georgia Technical College has placed in the 39th Annual PLANET Student Career Days competition.

North Georgia Technical College Horticulture students weathered the pouring rain and red clay mud of North Carolina recently to participate in the competition.

Tommy Etheridge of Lavonia joined the NGTC team to participate in all 28 of the events that highlight the diversity of careers in the “green” industry.

The NGTC team competed against 757 students and 65 schools from both two year and four year colleges and major Universities like BYU, Penn State, Ohio State, North Carolina State, The University of Georgia, Michigan State, Clemson, Auburn and Colorado State just to name a few.

The team as a whole had set a goal of placing in the top 25, and they met that goal, finishing 21st in the National ranking.

For individual overall rankings, NGTC had four students that placed in the top 50 out of 757 students. They included Etheridge of Lavonia who came in 46th place, Scarlett Kilby of Rabun Gap at 27th, Christian Delugach of Clarkesville in 30th place, and Cody Turpin of Alto in 37th place,

Three students also placed in the top 20 in their individual contests.

Scarlett Kilby placed 6th in both Annual and Perennial Identification and in Interior Plant Identification.

She also placed 19th in Woody Plant Identification.

The team of Cary Galloway of Clayton and Susie Berry of Cleveland placed 14th in Irrigation Troubleshooting. Case Dodson was ranked 19th in the Tractor Loader Backhoe event.

Other members of the 2015 NGTC PLANET team included Tracey Pardue of Mt. Airy, Jess Owens of Clayton, and Josh Bowling of Lithia Springs.