WACO, Texas (KWTX) - 30 teams of high school students competed in United Ag and Turf’s Central Texas tractor technician competition, highlighting the younger generation’s interest in combating the technician deficiency in the agriculture industry.

“I’m pumped. I didn’t go to sleep last night,” said Warren Heckman, a high school sophomore. That sentence is one you would expect to hear on Christmas morning, but for Heckman, today was even better.

Hosted at Texas State Technical College, nearly 100 students tested their tractor technician knowledge in hands-on challenges: the debugging contest, component test, and 100-question exam. For the debugging contest, teams of three have 30 minutes to diagnose and fix issues in a tractor. They must be able to correct those bugs, turn on the tractor,

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