The NorthEast Texas Livestock Association Ag Mechanics Show featured 29 projects from six schools, some team and some individual projects.
Cumby and Como-Pickton students went home with the top awards presented at Tuesday’s event.
Grand Champion went to Cumby FFA members Fabian Camargo and Logan Miller for their hay bunker and Reserve Champion to Como-Pickton FFA members Jason Monk, Canyon Thomas and Braden Miller. Baylee Bowen, also of Como-Pickton FFA, won the Ag Mechanics Showmanship Award
Class awards were awarded in four class categories: farm, recreation, wildlife and farm shop categories.
The projects featured the work of students who have dedicated numerous hours over days, weeks and months to complete them.
Projects were as unique as the students building them, ranging from picnic tables, utility tables, TV tables, shadow boxes, fire boxes, hay trailer, a shadow box, deer feeder, handcrafted longbow, chuck wagon grill, entry gate, grills, hay squeeze shut and many other agriculture projects.
Some were crafted over time, some designed for functionality and others included intricate details or were customized. Some competitors were experienced, while others competed at the show for the first time.
KC DelCamp and Wiliam Sallee, Miller Grove 
Wyatt Poteet and Eli Hewitt, Miller Grove ISD 
Clayton Tackel, Miller Grove 
Bryce Perez (not pictured, Dalton Morgan), Como-Pickton 
Jacob Smith and Caiden Lewis, Sulphur Springs 
Cash Vititow, Sulphur Springs 
Angel Abrego and Shaden Cruz, Sulphur Springs 
Alayna Chapman, Maci Wright and Presley Cummins, Como-Pickton 
Eli Ham, Sulphur Bluff
For instance, Clayton Tackel, a Miller Grove student, made a picnic table and bench that he waterproofed. Atop the table is painted a Texas flag. The benches are ADA approved to make the bench easier for people in wheelchairs to get into and more accessible to all.
Como-Pickton’s Alayna Chapman, Maci Wright and Presley Cummins also put their own stamp on their picnic table. They went to great lengths to preserve the colors in the wood pieces they used to create in their glossy table, which features tractor seats shaped for a better fit and a metal tractor cutout below it.
However, the table constructed by Sulphur Springs’ Angel Abrego and Shaden Cruz was built more for utility than decoration.
Baylee Bowen crafted a wooden shadow box which has function as well as design; she plans to take it with her to cow shows to hold most of her tack. CP student Bryce Perez crafted a TV table from smaller pieces of wood put together in a zigzag specific pattern and a drawer at the bottom.
Then there’s Sulphur Bluff Eli Ham, who spent two months carefully crafting his longbow. The project started with 1x4s and required lots of time using multiple instruments to shape, sand and string it.
Of course those are only a few examples of the projects entered in the NETLA Ag Mechanics Show.
