BEAUDESERT State High School came home from Sydney on Tuesday with a raft of gongs from the Archibull Awards.
After being acknowledged front-runners for the past two years, the school was aptly rewarded this year with the prestigious overall grand champion award.
They also won an award for best artwork and the Alan Eagle Award for community involvement as well as receiving a highly commended awards for best blog, Sydney Science Park Enterprise Skills and best infographic.
Teachers Laura Perkins and Vincent Kruger accompanied students Ruby Smith, Lachlan Ferguson and Kate Malanaphy to the awards ceremony in Sydney.
Ms Perkins said it had been a long day, with the group getting up in the early hours to be at the airport by 4am, attending the Arcibulls and arriving back home by 6pm the same day.
"We were absolutely over the moon to have won it, the kids were ecstatic," she said.
"The three students we took were a credit to the school, the town, the community and Dairy Australia.
"They all spoke so well, I was humbled by the way these three conducted themselves.
"We also won $1500 and the cheque was almost as big as one of our students."
Ms Perkins said gardening guru Costa Georgiadis was at the awards again this year.
"Once all the other competitors had left, he stayed around and chatted to our kids for about an hour and a half," she said.
"He even brought his own award- a Logie, and he let all the kids have a hold of it."
McAuley College students also entered the competition for the first time, coinciding with the introduction of agricultural studies at the school this year.
Visual Arts and STEM Technologies teacher Cathy Hunt and Agriculture teacher Tenielle Brimson took five students down to Sydney, with the trip funded by a very supportive school community.
"This has been a wonderful experience for them," said Ms Hunt.
"We have lots of kids who live on farms and this has been a tough year with the drought and fires.
"We had fantastic support from the school community and to think that of the nine schools from across the country that made the finals, two were from Beaudesert was phenomenal.
"Considering the tough time our farmers are having , it was great to see our students showcasing positivity."
Mrs Hunt said the schools hoped that when the cows came home it would be good to have them displayed publically.
"We would love to see them in the main street, this has been a really big deal, this is not just a little art prize," she said
"We were so happy for the Beaudesert State High School team.
"This year was just the start of McAuley's Archibull experience."
The McAuley team were winners of the Mover's Choice and Highly Commended for their blog and infographic, no mean feat considering the students were only in years seven to nine and up against much older students from city schools.
"Some of these entries were created by year 10 and 11 students as part of their courses," Mrs Hunt said.
She said McAuley students made their entry, Boots McCowley, in their own time and it was lovely to see this acknowledged with the awards as well as two of their year seven students being individually recognised for their work.
