“In Memory of” embroidered on the blue corduroy jacket is a heavy, but very impactful way students at J. Frank Hillyard Middle School in Broadway, Va., are honoring past FFA members.

Official Dress is the outfit FFA members are known and recognized for. It requires a white collared shirt, a FFA scarf or tie, black slacks or a black skirt, black dress shoes (closed toe/heel), black socks or nylons and the blue corduroy jacket representing your name, chapter and state. Official Dress is required at events like national and state conventions, chapter meetings, area competitions and numerous other activities. However, many students just getting involved in FFA don’t always have access to Official Dress or are not able to get it before an event.

The Idea of the Closet

Thomas Lohr, a student at J. Frank Hillyard Middle School (JFHMS) in Virginia, noticed this issue and brought it to his mom’s attention. Jackie Lohr, a current school board member, came up with an idea to fix this issue. Lohr says she already planned to donate her kids’ middle school jackets back to the chapter when they moved up to the high school. However, when they realized that would only provide two jackets, they started working with the chapter advisors and discovered that Thomas could apply for a Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) Grant and make a project out of it. Thomas Lohr received the grant and was ready to start his SAE.

The Lohrs decided they wanted to make an Official Dress closet. This closet would provide all items of Official Dress to members in need of a specific item or jacket. With the grant, they were able to buy several items of Official Dress, specifically 10 jackets. These jackets would have “J. Frank Hillyard” and “Virginia ” on the back, but what about the front, where the name typically goes?

“We didn’t just want the name spot to be blank, so we started brainstorming on ways we could fill that space, along with accounting for when we got jackets back and which jacket belonged to who,” Lohr says.

In Memory Of

Right around the time the Lohrs were planning the SAE, Dennis Smith, a former agriculture teacher at JFHMS, passed away after a long battle with Parkinson’s Disease. This sparked the idea to do “In memory of” on the jackets. Since they had 10 jackets, they decided they could do different people, with many names coming right to mind. However, they also wanted to get more community involvement, so they asked the chapter and other community members, “Who had an impact in agriculture and FFA in our area that we could put on the jackets?”

JFHMS currently has 12 “In memory of” jackets. Each one contains a bio card of the person it’s in honor of, so that the member wearing it knows more about who they are proudly representing.

“The goal of this closet is to get more students involved in FFA,” Lohr says. “If a student is interested in competing or going to convention, we don’t want them to not be able to attend just because they don’t have a jacket. We hope that once they are able to attend one event, it makes them want to stay involved and be able to borrow a jacket until they are able to receive their own.”

While building this closet, a dear friend and fellow FFA member at Broadway High School, Jesse Haviland, passed away in an automobile accident. Though there were still funds left to purchase another jacket, no one was quite ready, and they decided they would wait until the timing felt right.

This past year, a week before the national convention, Kaleb Fulk, an eighth grader at JFHMS, was in need of a jacket, and there wasn’t one in the current closet that would work. Fulk was a family friend of Haviland, so the timing felt right. They worked with Virginia FFA and National FFA staff to get the jacket just in time for convention. As Fulk traveled to Indiana, he was able to proudly bear Haviland’s name.

“It felt good to honor Jesse and keep his memory alive, and I was very grateful for that opportunity,” Fulk says. “Without the closet, I wouldn’t have been able to attend a convention because I didn’t have a jacket, but I plan to stay involved in FFA and eventually get my own jacket.”

The FFA chapter at JFHMS says it plans to continue keeping this closet alive and getting more students involved through it.

“The blue jacket is more than just a uniform; it’s a symbol of pride, tradition and belonging,” Lohr says.