WHITE SALMON — On Feb. 1, Columbia High School Future Farmers of America (FFA) members Raina McAllister and Josie Dickey competed in the District 8 FFA Extemporaneous Public Speaking career development event. They traveled to Vancouver, Wash., and competed against FFA members from Southwest Washington.

McAllister and Dickey were given three agriculture-related topics to choose from. Then, they each had 20 minutes to use textbooks, news publications and the internet to write four- to six-minute speeches about their assigned topic.