UW-River Falls Students Place Third in Competition at the Mid-American Collegiate Horticulture Society Annual Meeting

Oct. 19, 2012 – Eight University of Wisconsin-River Falls (UWRF) students participated in the 40^th Annual Mid-American Collegiate Horticultural Society (MACHS) meetings in Brookings, SD, October 11-14. MACHS includes the collegiate horticulture clubs from 12 mid-America states.

The MACHS meeting offers students the opportunity to network with their peers and industry professionals, visit horticultural points of interest in the region, and participate in a series of competitions against their peers from other institutions. The competitions test student knowledge in general horticulture, woody plant identification, herbaceous plant identification and plant quality evaluation. The UWRF team came in third place overall in the competition and multiple individuals received awards for individual events.

Prior to the competition four students from each campus were designated as the official team for their respective campuses, but all students were able to compete to earn individual awards. The four students that comprised the UWRF team were Lindsay Heggemeyer of New Prague, Minn., Jesse Read of Belle Plaine, Minn., Joel Sehloff of Malone and Jacob Kluza of Oshkosh.

In the individual awards, Read placed second in both the exam on overall knowledge and the herbaceous plant identification competition. Scott Dzimian of West Bend took third place in the herbaceous plant identification and Heggemeyer took third place in the woody plant identification competition.

 UWRF will host the 41st MACHS event in 2013.