Alumni Focus

Concert bands have been a fixture at the National FFA Convention since 1947, when the first official band was selected from FFA member tryouts. But that wasn’t the first band to play at the convention. An FFA band from Fredericktown, Ohio, performed in Kansas City at the fifth convention in 1933. Remarkably, two members of that band are still living – Linden Scheff (pictured above, left) and Neil Overly – and they attended a recent ceremony that recognized Fredericktown as the home of the FFA jacket. Overly, a retired farmer, turned 100 on Nov. 8. Here, he discusses his FFA experience and the years since. New Horizons: What is the background of that 1933 FFA convention band? Neil Overly: I grew up on the family farm and was a pretty good trumpet player, too. When I was 14 and a freshman in high school, the school FFA leader asked me to join FFA and go with them to Kansas City to play in a band he was taking. We rode the Buckeye Stages bus line and stayed overnight in Indianapolis. [...]