Just as National FFA Week is celebrated each February, members of the national New Farmers of America (NFA) honored their organization for a week in April.
Established in 1935 to serve Black vocational agriculture students in segregated public schools in Southern states, NFA operated until FFA and NFA became one organization in 1965. When NFA existed, the organization had its own celebratory day — National NFA Day — on April 5. NFA Day was celebrated on Booker T. Washington’s birthday, April 5, and eventually evolved into a weeklong celebration.
Linda Kinnard from Bell Street High School in Clinton, S.C., competed for Miss NFA in 1963.
National NFA Week included a variety of activities, including presentations, assemblies and banquets, but no event was more highly anticipated than the crowning of Miss NFA.
Although women couldn’t participate as members of the organization, they could be selected as “sweethearts,” similar to FFA. Sweethearts would compete to become Miss NFA, typically through a grade-level election process at the chapter level and a district and state contest.
Many winners were awarded Miss NFA jackets that are hard to track down today. A modified version of the Miss NFA jacket owned by an agriculture teacher in North Carolina offers a glimpse into what they resembled.
Miss NFA jackets are believed to have been made of black corduroy and stitched with gold thread. The front right-hand side would have likely included their names, the title of Miss NFA and the year they held the crown, while the left side would have featured the NFA emblem. On the back of the jacket, “Miss NFA” may have been stitched across the top, with the NFA emblem centered below and the recipient’s chapter name stitched near the bottom.
The Miss NFA jackets looked similar to official FFA jackets today.
There’s a lot to learn about NFA’s culture, traditions and activities. To help preserve the organization’s rich history, the National FFA Foundation awarded a three-year grant of $324,422 to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (N.C. A&T), which is where the first NFA headquarters was located. The grant will support the university’s NFA digitization project that includes an estimated 150,000 pieces of memorabilia.
Once the project is complete, the digitized materials (including documents, records, banners, medals, photographs and more) will be available online, giving both FFA members and the general public an opportunity to learn more about NFA.
Ready to take a deeper look into the history of NFA? Check out The Legacy of the New Farmers of America, a pictorial book available for purchase. It documents the story of the organization’s rise from a few members to more than 58,000 active members in 1,000-plus chapters. Tractor Supply Company (TSC), a platinum sponsor of the National FFA, has generously donated $100,000 to fund the first year of the project.
Preorder your book at Target or Barnes & Noble.
