For those who went to Fort Cherry High School, Hickory High School, or really anyone familiar with the Fort Cherry area, the H.G. Parkinson FFA Chapter is something everyone recognizes. Being one of the very few active high school agricultural programs left in Washington County, the H.G. Parkinson/Fort Cherry FFA Chapter is something most local residents take pride in, whether they were a part of the organization during their high school years or not. But where does the chapter’s seemingly odd name come from? Other Washington County FFA Chapters (like most across the state and country) are named after their school: McGuffey FFA, Trinity, FFA, Avella FFA. So why is ours called “H.G. Parkinson” and not “Fort Cherry” FFA? Most assume that he was the first advisor to the FFA program, or the chapter’s founder, which is an understandable assumption that’s not too far off from the truth. The story of the man behind the name, however, is an interesting one with an unfortunate ending.
Early Years
Harry Glenn Parkinson was born May 16, 1890 in Morris Township, Greene County, Pennsylvania, the fourth of five children of John Leonidas Parkinson and Caroline Cordelia Simpson. His father was a farmer, and young Harry likely spent most of his young life working the fields alongside his father, brothers, and sisters [31]. On January 19, 1917, five-feet, six-inch tall, brown-eyed and auburn-haired Harry Glenn enlisted as a Private in Company K of the 10th Infantry Division of the Pennsylvania National Guard out of Waynesburg at the ripe age of 16. Four months later on April 26, he was discharged. Less than a year later, on March 10, 1908, he reenlisted at the age of 17, staying in for over two years before being discharged on July 8, 1910 [20]. On January 1, 1911 he married Hope Patton, of Charleroi, PA at the Cumberland, Maryland courthouse [15] and a month later once again reenlisted in the Pennsylvania National Guard, being discharged two short months later on April 15 [20].
During this time, Parkinson had been enrolled at Waynesburg College, two years behind his older brother Chauncey. He was a member of the Phi Sigma fraternity, was on the school’s football team playing right end, and became the team’s captain in 1910. He graduated there in the spring of 1911 with a bachelor of arts degree [30], and then quickly moved onto the University of Illinois, wife in tow. There he majored in animal husbandry and was an active member in the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, graduating with a bachelor of science degree in 1913 [29]. After graduation, he took a position teaching in the agricultural school at Minneapolis, Minnesota [8].
A Statewide Experiment
In 1915 [12], Parkinson returned home to southwestern Pennsylvania with his wife, three-year old son John, and newborn daughter Alice. That year, Pennsylvania was trying something new in the field of education, passing legislation that created the Bureau of Vocational Education. An initial project of the bureau was to start five state funded vocational schools across the state – one of which happened to be the newly constructed Mount Pleasant Township Vocational School in Hickory, Washington County, and Mr. H.G. Parkinson was selected for the position of supervisor of agriculture [10].
Parkinson entered his new position at this experiment of a school in the fall of 1915 with a passion and zeal for vocational education. Just prior to the start of the 1916 school year, he wrote in The Washington Observer about the benefits of a vocational agriculture program, saying that “[i]t is not sufficient that the high school teach the classics well. This school, the people’s school, must touch the individual life of the people and open the doors of opportunity which lead to a happy and successful life for the boys and girls. Man was
created with a body which could work. He was also created with a mind which could think, and the public school was created to help the individual to live. This means the function of the school is to increase the child’s ability to understand, appreciate, enjoy, and use the forces of nature which lie about him.”[15]
During the next two years, he remained active in his community while helping to mold the minds of the students enrolled in the vocational agriculture program at Hickory. He refereed high school basketball games [4], put his students to work volunteering to repair local roads and bridges [23], spoke at various agricultural events in the surrounding communities [24], and started the Farm Products Show in Hickory [15], the precursor to what would become the Hickory Fair. In July 1917, however, the school board accepted “with great regret” the resignation of Parkinson as director of agriculture at the Mount Pleasant Township Vocational High School [22]. After two years of hard work and dedication to this experiment in vocational education, it was time to move on to a new role where he could make an even greater impact on the young minds of America.
A New Beginning
The start of the 1917 school year brought new experiences and a new home for the Parkinson family. He, his wife, and three children, including newborn Harry Jr. would find themselves settling into a comfortable home on Burrows Street in State College. Pennsylvania State University had recently created a Department of Agricultural Education, and H.G. was about to become one of the newest associate professors in this budding field.[13]
“Mothers! Fathers! Public Service Needs Your Boys!”
H.G. didn’t wait to jump into his new role feet first. With World War I in full swing, The United States and Europe were plagued by a vast food shortage. To help remedy this epidemic, the US Government formed the “Boys’ Working Reserve,” an “army of patriotic youth” [5] on the home front with a goal of 1,000,000 young men. It was described as an “enrolled army of patriotic volunteer youths between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one years, organized under the United States Department of Labor, to help the nation on the farm and in the factory to win the war. Every boy who is physically fit, who is of proper age, is eligible for this non-military civilian army." [5]
High school principals and public librarians were tasked with recruiting young men for work over the summers. Once cleared as physically fit, the boys were issued their official membership pin and certificate, were able to purchase a military-style uniform for $10, and sent off to training camps before being moved to a farm to work. In Pennsylvania, training was held at the Boys Farm Training Camp at Penn State University, which at the time was the only state farm training camp to be based on an active farm, allowing for actual hands-on training, as opposed to the classroom-based and lecture-style learning provided by other training camps across the county.
After the Spring 1918 college semester closed, nearly 500 college boys completed a five-day training which would prepare them to be leaders and supervisors of the high-school aged groups that would be arriving the following week. [26] They would then be sent out as crew leaders overseeing groups of 24-or-so boys for six to eight weeks over the summer as they fulfilled their work detail on individual farms across the state. At the conclusion of the five-day camp, over 1,000 high school aged boys made the Penn State University farm their home for the next ten days as they went through intensive training on all aspects of agricultural and farm work – most of them being from the more urban areas of the state, having little exposure to the workings of rural life. H.G. Parkinson was tasked with leading this new training effort, being named Executive Officer of the Pennsylvania Farm Training Camp [26]. He was then appointed as the director of the State College district of Pennsylvania [28], and named inspector of the camp [26]. Certainly, a trial by fire for a new, 27-year-old professor.
Photos from the Penn State Farm Training Camp for the U.S. Boys Working Reserve in 1918.
Notice H.G. Parkinson in the second picture, front row, white shirt. (Source: U.S. National Archives) (Click images for captions)
Taking Charge
Once the war was over and the training camps disbanded, H.G. was able to settle back into life as a college professor, teaching on rural and agricultural education and the importance of vocational education as a new way of teaching. When not on campus, he toured the state giving talks and lectures at vocational schools, meetings, and fairs. In 1919 he became a tenured professor, and in 1920 became the head of the Department of Rural Education [24]. He continued teaching and touring, and was often leading or participating in education and agriculture association meetings and conferences across the nation.
In the fall of 1922, he took a one-year leave of absence [20] from his position at Penn State, moved to Ithaca, New York with his wife Hope and now four kids, and received a master of science degree in agriculture from Cornell University. In his 145-page thesis, “A Study of the Job of the County Supervisor of Vocational Agriculture in Pennsylvania with a View to Constructing a Suggested Course of Preparation,” he emphasized that “the boy on the farm has a right to expect that one of the results of secondary education is increased ability to farm intelligently and efficiently.”[16] He returned back to his position as department head in the fall of 1923.
Throughout his tenure at Penn State, H.G. served as the secretary of the College of Agriculture at Penn State for many years, was a member of the College Senate, serving on various committees, and was a faculty member of the same fraternities that he participated in as a student. He even taught graduate school classes over the summer at Kansas State University [3]. Additionally, Parkinson maintained leadership roles in various educational organizations, including president of the PA State Educational Association, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Agricultural Education, secretary of the of the American Association of Teacher Educators in Agriculture’s (AATEA) 1931 conference in New York City, and President at the 1932 conference in Kansas City. He also remained active in his local community, serving as
a founding member of State College’s first Chamber of Commerce [32]
and making time to play in local bridge tournaments with his wife [27].
A man more dedicated to his community and work would be hard to find.
Across the Sea
In 1934, H.G. Parkinson decided to take a leave of absence once again, but this time for an even greater endeavor - he had accepted a position as Dean of the College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts, the land grant university in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. On August 16, 1934, the Parkinson family boarded the S.S. Coamo [25] passenger steamer in New York City and set sail, bound for the Port of San Juan and a new life in the tropics.
The USS Coamo was a passenger steamship built in 1925. On December 9, 1942 while passing through Bermuda enroute from Puerto Rico to New York, she was torpedoed by a German U-boat and sank to the bottom of the sea, killing all 186 passengers on board. It was the greatest loss of a merchant crew of any US Flag merchant vessel during WWII. [33] (Click images for captions)
He had originally only planned to stay one year in Puerto Rico and then return to his position at Penn State, but at the conclusion of the 1934-1935 school year he asked for and was granted a one-year extension to remain at his position in Mayaguez, agreeing to return to Penn State for the 1936-1937 school year [6]. As he continued to champion the same principles of vocational and agricultural education that he did back on the mainland, he discussed in the May 1935 edition of the “Public Works Magazine of Puerto Rico” how much progress the university had been making in turning out agriculture degrees, and their benefits to agricultural production on the island, particularly in coffee, rice, and sugar crops.[17]
In the early months of 1936, H.G. became ill, but to his family and friends, seemed to be improving. Then on March 22, just months before the end of the spring semester and his planned return to the mainland, his home on Burrows Street, and his job at Penn State, he suffered a hemorrhagic stroke. [8] There, at the university that he relocated his family to and spent the last two years leading, he died unexpectedly at the age of 46. The Associated Press picked up the story, publishing a short obituary in New York City’s Daily News two days later. [8] Then newspapers across the nation published their own obituaries detailing the life and work of this well-known professor, educator, and friend. The Parkinson family returned to Pennsylvania, bringing the body of their husband and father with them. They arrived in Philadelphia on March 31 aboard the SS Ponce, and held a funeral service in Dunns Station, Washington County, PA on April 2 at 1:00 PM. [10] He was then buried in the Upper Ten Mile United Presbyterian Church Cemetery in Prosperity. [2]
A Man Remembered
The Parkinson family moved back to State College and settled into the home they left two years prior. Mrs. Hope Parkinson remained active in the community and visited her family in Washington County often. While H.G. was no longer around to roam the halls at Penn State or travel the nation addressing groups about the importance of vocational agriculture education, his name was carried on in the agricultural education field, but in a different way.
The Future Farmers of America was founded in Blacksburg, Virginia in 1928 [1] as a way to prepare future generations for the challenges of feeding a growing population. In 1929, Pennsylvania chartered their own state chapter [18], under which many of the state-run vocational agriculture schools were able to participate in contests and show animals at the Pennsylvania Farm Show in Harrisburg. A handful of schools formed their own school chapters very soon after, including the Trinity and Claysville FFA Chapters. Mount Pleasant Township Vocational School started their own school chapter as well, and instead of following the standard convention of naming it after their school, they dedicated it as the H.G. Parkinson FFA Chapter, in honor of the school’s very first supervisor of agriculture [11], who then went on to shape vocational and agricultural education on a national scale.
Now, when you see a student in that blue and gold FFA jacket with the words H.G. Parkinson FFA embroidered across the back, take pride in the unusual name of the chapter, knowing that the man it is named for was influential in bettering the nation’s understanding of the importance of vocational agriculture training. That he led the effort to train thousands of high school boys to support their communities during the war effort of WWI, to feed a starving nation and world. That he took charge to lead and develop the agricultural education programs we still have in our schools today – programs which are crucial for students in all walks of life, no matter what career they hope to achieve some day. That knowing how to use your hands and your mind together is a benefit to all of society, and that we are the future of agriculture and the world.
Works Cited
1. “About Us.” National FFA Organization, Aug. 2023, www.ffa.org/about/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CFuture%20Farmers%20of%20America%E2%80%9D%20was,business%20and%20it’s%20an%20art.
2. Ancestry.com. U.S., Find a Grave® Index, 1600s-Current [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.
3. Centre Daily Times. September 4, 1925, 6
4. “Claysville Wins From Hickory High” The Daily Notes. January 6, 1916, 2
5. Department of Labor, US Boys Working Reserve. Making Boy Power Count: Young Men of America Helping in Field and Factory to Win the War. Washington, DC: 1917.
6. “Faculty Leave of Absence Announced” Centre Daily Times. June 18, 1935, 8
7. “Harry G. Parkinson Dies” Daily News. March, 25, 1936.
8. “HG Parkinson Dies at Puerto Rican College” The Daily Notes. March 24, 1936
9. “HG Parkinson Dies” Intelligencer Journal. March 30, 1936, 4
10. “HG Parkinson” The Daily Republican. March 24, 1936.
11. “Hickory Future farmers Honor Prof. H.E. Parkinson” The Washington Observer. November 4, 1932, 11
12. “Hickory” The Washington Observer. July 30, 1915, 7
13. “Many Students Enter US Service; Name New Teachers” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. September 10, 1917, 5
14. “Maryland Weddings” The Baltimore Sun. January 2, 1911, 5
15. Parkinson, H.G. “Mount Pleasant Township Vocational School” The Washington Observer. August 26, 1916, 19
16. Parkinson, Harry Glenn. "A Study of the Job of the County Supervisor of Vocational Agriculture in Pennsylvania with a View to Constructing a Suggested Course of Preparation." 1923.
17. Parkinson, HG. "El Colegio de Agricultura y Artes Mecanicas: El Verdadero Exponente de una Inversion Provechosa de dinero." Revista de Obras Publicas de Puerto Rico. May 1935.
18. Pennsylvania FFA Association. “Pennsylvania FFA Charter.” 1929. https://hdl.handle.net/2450/6812
19. Pennsylvania State Archives; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Pennsylvania National Guard Veterans` Card File, 1867-1921; Series Number: 19.135
20. Pennsylvania State College, La Vie (State College, Pennsylvania: 1923), URL, https://digital.libraries.psu.edu/digital/collection/lavie/id/31432/rec/34, accessed on August 2024.
21. “Professor Parkinson Resigns” The Daily Notes. July 7, 1917, 2
22. “Road Work Done in Nearby Townships” The Daily Notes. May 26, 1916, 1
23. “Stock Judging Test in Shaler Township” The Pittsburgh Post. June 10, 1916, 1
24. “The History of the Department of Agricultural and Extension Education at The Pennsylvania State University” Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences. 2005.
25. The National Archives At Washington, D.C.; Washington, D.C.; Series Title: Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving At San Juan, Puerto Rico, 10/07/1901 - 06/30/1948; NAI Number: A3533; Record Group Title: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787-2004; Record Group Number: 85
26. “To Train Boys for Farm Work” Centre Daily Times. April 19, 1918, 1;4
27. “Tournament Closes with Bridge Supper” Centre Daily Times. December 16, 1927, 1
28. “Train Farm Leaders at State College” The Philadelphia Inquirer. April 27, 1918, 5
29. University of Illinois, The Illio (Urbana, Illinois: 1914), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Archives, http://hdl.handle.net/10111/UIUCOCA:illio14univ, accessed on August 2024.
30. Waynesburg College, The Athenian (Columbus, Ohio: 1912), URL, https://archive.org/details/WC1912/mode/2up, accessed on August 2024.
31. Year: 1900; Census Place: Morris, Washington, Pennsylvania; Roll: 1494; Page: 10; Enumeration District: 0158
32. “New Body is an Active One” Centre Daily Times. September 11, 1920, 1
33. Coamo (no date) Coamo | The United States Navy Memorial. Available at: https://navylog.navymemorial.org/coamo (Accessed: August 2024).