...Maryland Soil Judgers Take First Place Again in 2007!....

...Maryland Soil Judgers Take First Place Again in 2007!...

The Northeast Regional Soil Judging contest was hosted by the University of Maryland this October, 2007, and was held in the vicinity of Laurel, Maryland.  Among a field of seven teams from six Universities, the University of Maryland had yet another strong 1st place finish this year.

The practice and contest pits featured an interesting assortment of soils from both the Piedmont and the Coastal Plain provinces. Individual honors for the 3 pits judged on Friday went to the following individuals:  Michele Hetu (1) University of Rhode Island (URI); Andrea Gibson (2) Wilmington College of Ohio (WCO); Mitchell Valerio (3) Ohio State University (OSU) ; Vera Jaffe (4) UMD; Clinton Gill (5) UMD; Katherine McAlarney (6) OSU;  Preston Simmons (7) WCO; Lindsay Shirk (8) Delaware Valley College; George Gaetz (9) UMD; Asia Vinnikova (10) UMD. 

After several extremely dry months, the contestants had to endure significant rain on every practice day and on both days of the contest. Notwithstanding the rain, the UMD teams also finished 1st place in the group judging!  Overall (combined) team rankings put University of Maryland in 1st place followed by Ohio State in 2nd and the University of Rhode Island in 3rd.

Other participating teams included Delaware Valley College, Pennsylvania State University, and Wilmington College of Ohio.  The top three schools look forward to participating in the 43rd National Soil Judging contest next April to be hosted by the University of Rhode Island.  Because the host school is not permitted to participate in the National contest, the NE region will be represented by the University of Maryland, Ohio State, and Wilmington College.