Southeast Missouri State University had six students compete in the National Collegiate Landscape Competition held on Friday, March 17, at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

There were 672 students total at the event representing 60 different colleges and universities from across the nation.

Southeast students competed in nine of the 29 total events offered, ranging from Computer-Aided Landscape Design, Interior Landscape Design, Turf and Weed Identification and Landscape Plant Installation.

Southeast’s highlight of the competition came in Hardscape Installation, where senior Patrick Hoffman and junior Marty Aide finished fifth out of 40 teams. Hoffman and Aide were required to build a paver patio with a fire pit in under two hours based on the plans they were provided.

Aide and junior Tyler Wood placed 20th out of 53 in Truck and Trailer Operations, senior David Pittman finished 28th of 82 in Business Management, and Hoffman placed 23rd of 44 in Exterior Landscape Design.

Aide, Pittman, and senior Cody Heisserer placed 34th of 57 in Landscape Plant Installation, where the three had to plant and sod a small area to match the designs they were given.

“We had a 15-foot dirt plot,” Heisserer said. “They gave us two trees, five evergreen shrubs, some annual flowers, and what we had to do is follow the plans and make a sod walkway … then on each side [of the plot] is a raised flower bed with mulch and different things.”

As a school, Southeast placed 48th out of 60, but the competitions were only part of the NCLC. The day before the competitions began, there was a career fair where students had the opportunity to network, hand out resumes and set up interviews with different companies from across the nation.

“There were a variety of all kinds of companies,” Heisserer said. “I interviewed with a company in Chicago, a company in Colorado and a company in New Orleans.”

Some of the companies there specialized in landscaping, designing and even tree services.

“[NCLC] is such a wonderful experience for networking, gaining new knowledge and experiencing other universities across the country,” instructor Heidi Clark said. “Overall, we had students land five interviews for potential internships and full-time job placement.”

Clark planned the trip for the students and this was the first time Southeast was represented at the NCLC.

“I attended the competition when I was a college student at SIU,” Clark said. “And there are so many opportunities to gain new knowledge and networking. I wanted to be able to share that experience with them and give them the same opportunities I had.”

Clark and the students flew out on Tuesday, March 14.

“It was a couple people’s first time flying, so that was pretty neat,” Heisserer said. “We flew into Las Vegas and had a five-hour car ride from Las Vegas to Provo. Got into Provo around 2 a.m. and had to be up at 7 the next morning for classes.”

The students spent the first two days between classes and the career fair. The competitions started at 6:30 a.m. on Friday, March 17, and lasted until around 6 that evening, then all the students who competed were given a leisure day on Saturday, March 18, where they could either go mountain biking, skiing, hiking or walking through the gardens in Salt Lake City.

With the first trip for Southeast at NCLC being such a success, Clark is already planning to take a team to next year’s competitions.

“For our first year the students did outstanding,” Clark said. “The students all worked very hard outside of class time to prepare. Although some did not score as well as they would like, they are prepped and know what to expect next year. Many of them plan on returning to compete again.”

Next year’s NCLC will be hosted by Alamance Community College in Graham, North Carolina.