Washington County FFA member Ryan Stewart was recognized as the State Star in Ag Placement, one of the association’s top honors, during the 90th Kansas FFA Convention, May 30–June 1, 2018, on the Kansas State University campus.

Each year, the Kansas FFA Association recognizes three FFA members who have the top Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) programs with the Star Farmer, Star in Agribusiness and Star in Ag Placement awards. The Star competitions are sponsored by ICM, Inc., United Bank and Trust and Kansas Farm Bureau.

For Stewart’s SAE in Agricultural Sales – Placement, he has worked at Stewart Seed LLC, Open Range Sales Co. LLC, and Sunflower Sales LLC. He has helped with seed and grain systems, assisted customers, and learned about many other aspects of the business, including installing GPS receivers on customer combines and implementing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in everyday agricultural operations. Since his high school graduation in 2017, he has attended the World Wide College of Auctioneering and now works as a sales rep/auctioneer for Open Range and as a manager for Sunflower Sales.

Ryan is the son of Rodney and Kannette Stewart. His FFA advisor is John Kern.

Stewart was the district winner in the North Central District. The other district star winners who were finalists for the state Star in Ag Placement honor were: South Central District: Austin Peterson, Centre FFA; Northeast District: Judd Nelson, Jackson Heights FFA; Northwest District: Samuel Bretz, Hoxie FFA; East Central District: Isaac Wingert, Ottawa FFA; Southwest District: Henry Beesley, Hugoton FFA; Southeast District: Tyler Gum, Riverton FFA.

Photos are available at Flickr.com/ksffa or upon request.