Kacie Haag of Emington has been named one of four Illinois Star Award winners through the Illinois FFA. Her honor came at the 88th annual Illinois State FFA Convention, held June 14-16 at Springfield.

Kacie won the Illinois Star Award in ag science for monitoring nitrogen fertilizer use on the family farm to ensure minimal environmental impact.

She is the daughter of Michael and Trisha Haag, of Emington. She's a student of FFA adviser Diana Loschen, vocational agriculture teacher and FFA adviser at Tri-Point High School in Cullom.

Kacie's supervised agricultural experience includes work on her family's large hog farm. She has worked with cover crop trials and a new program called N-Watch to study one spot of the field once each month to better understand the movement of nitrogen through the soil profile. Her project helps ensure the farm is minimizing its environmental impact.

Illinois Star awards also awarded for ag business, ag placement and star farmer.

Kacie also won the state proficiency award in environmental science and natural resources for the nitrogen project.

Illinois Star Awards honor FFA members who have developed the organization's most outstanding agricultural skills and competencies through their Supervised Agricultural Experience. They also have demonstrated outstanding management skills and earned the State FFA Degree — the Illinois Association FFA's highest degree of membership.

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