Member Creates Dress Closet in Memory of Community Members

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Community Members Live on Through FFA Jackets

After learning that his middle school ag teacher wanted jackets to lend to students, Thomas Lohr, a sophomore Broadway FFA member in Virginia, applied for a supervised agricultural experience (SAE) grant to make it happen. He received the funds but faced another hurdle: The jackets needed names. With the help of his mom, Jackie, and the community, he chose to dedicate them to 10 late individuals who had influenced local agriculture. Here’s a look at some of the legacies stitched in blue corduroy.

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Mark Deavers (March 23, 1971 – April 9, 2020)

Deavers was the initial inspiration for the memorial jackets. He died in a car crash only a few months before the project began. “He was one of those people the chapter could always rely on to help out,” says Jackie Lohr. Deavers was “the safety guy,” as Thomas Lohr remembers; he shared farm safety tips at monthly Young Farmers of Virginia meetings.

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Cathy Hively Hughes (May 12, 1962 – April 29, 2008)

“She was an amazing person,” Jackie Lohr says. “Her father was my husband’s ag teacher, and she was a legendary ag teacher.” Hughes, the 1982–83 Virginia FFA president, received both State and American FFA Degrees, as well as an Honorary American FFA Degree for teaching. Her nephews worked on the Lohrs’ farm for years. “I was practically raised as their brother,” Thomas Lohr adds.

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Sheila Shumaker Lilly (June 11, 1966 – December 23, 2018)

A graduate of Broadway High School and an active member of Young Farmers of Virginia, Lilly is remembered for giving back to the organizations she loved. “Both she and [her husband] Scot just gave so much to FFA and did so much for our youth,” says Jackie Lohr.

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Andrea Lynch Lohr (July 21, 1974 – July 10, 2011)

The 1993–94 Kentucky FFA president joined the Broadway, Va., community after marrying local Matt Lohr, a distant cousin of Thomas and Jackie’s family. “They lived right across the road, and we farmed together,” Jackie Lohr remembers. “We were more closely related by geography and love than actual blood — closer friends than we were kin.” Lynch Lohr taught agricultural education at J. Frank Hillyard Middle School, where the new closet full of blue jackets is housed.

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Dennis Smith (March 4, 1947 – March 28, 2020)

Both a graduate of and agriculture teacher at Broadway High School, Smith was active with the sheep department at the county fair. “I bought our first sheep from him when my oldest son, William, decided to show lambs,” Jackie Lohr says.