Suring FFA members are proud of their craft - as in watercraft.

Six of the chapter's 91 members and their adviser, Christine Clark, went to the Minneapolis Boat Show Jan. 23-26 to help unveil their winning graphic design on a limited edition Lund 1825 Rebel XL Vazer.

"The trip definitely made a difference seeing our plan and our sketch on the paper being put into real view where we could actually go and touch it," said Ashley Belongia, 16, Suring chapter vice president.

The side-hull design is a stylized map of the United States colored to look like a half-shucked ear of corn. The stern art shows flying spray, the FFA logo and the words, "Bleeding blue and gold for FFA."

The bow cover, consoles and back deck are corn green, and the seat covers and gunnels are in FFA blue.

"Usually Lund keeps the same color scheme, but we came up with the idea that they're going to use in future designs where they're going to have an accent color. That's going to set off the boat," Ashley said.

She said she was amazed at how fast Lund chose the design and produced a finished boat.

"Everything we had on there was just perfect down to the very detail," Ashley said. "Every single thing that we planned out was on the boat. The seats were the perfect color, and it just looked amazing."

She said the design project was given to the eighth-grade agricultural science class early in the school year. They developed an initial concept, which was then turned over to the officer team for polishing.

"We put our own ideas in there and kind of meshed them all together to create the final drawing," Ashley said.

Chris Clark said the contest was open to FFA members nationally. Entries were posted on a Web site for voting to select the top 10.

"Suring FFA students in study hall and ag classes voted and emailed their friends, family, alumni and local FFA chapters for their support," Clark wrote in an announcement about the award.

The top 10 entries - including Suring - were turned over to a committee of Lund Boat and National FFA Organization staff.

"When I found out, I only told the vice president so we could keep it a secret until the next day's monthly FFA meeting," Clark said. "The surprise winning news was told to big eyes and dropped jaws."

The members who made the trip to Minneapolis with Clark were Will Seidler, Ashley Belongia, Morgan Grandaw, Jill School, Lori Funk, DJ Sell and Katherine Woods.

"I am like a proud mother seeing them win. It was hard to explain my emotions. This is huge for our FFA chapter of 91 members and for our community of 626 in northeastern Wisconsin," Clark said.

The chapter received $2,000, hats and T-shirts with the boat graphic imprint.

Ashley said the officer team is looking for other competitions to enter.

"Since we realized the kind of talent we have among the FFA chapter, we really are promoting every single contest that's there, whether it be poster contests, or another Lund boat design, or just anything that can help people express their creativity within our chapter," she said.

There are hints about another award-winning design.

"Oh, most definitely. We just need to pull it out," she said.

The boat unveiled over the weekend in Minneapolis is No. 1 of 25. The limited-edition design will be for sale during 2009 for $19,995.

Sara Bredesen can be reached at stbrede@gmail.com.