Melrose students earn national honor

A group of students from Melrose finished third at the Business Professionals of America high school conference in Cincinnati in early May.

The six-person team grabbed the award in a 26-team parliamentary procedure event. Each team member was asked 50 questions before the schools were assigned a problem to be solved during a business meeting governed by parliamentary procedure rules.

Seniors Ryan Belcher, Josh Bright, Cody Cochran, Seth Hairgrove, Ryan Willoughby and junior Jason Runyan made up the Melrose team.

“(A judge) said that we won the presentation and it was the written test that dropped us back,” said Willoughby, who plans on attending Dodge City (Kan.) Community College on a livestock judging competition.

The team was outfitted with matching rented suits for the event.

“It was kind of weird, all of us farm guys going to the city,” Belcher said.

In a recent report from the United States Dairy Association National Agricultural Statistics Service, Roosevelt and Curry both rank among the Top 20 dairy counties in the nation.

The statistics, released as part of an April report, show Chaves County is the leading New Mexico producer of milk. That county ranks at No. 11 nationally while Roosevelt and Curry counties come in at Nos. 16 and No. 17 respectively.

The rankings are based on milk production through May of 2003.

California, according to the USDA, outdistances all other states in milk production. New Mexico, ranked seventh overall, has the most cows per herd at an average of 1,865.