Veteran ag professor retiring from Virginia Tech
Posted by Michelle on Jul 11, 2006 in Jeff, More Family
By Jane W. Graham
Special to The Roanoke Times
The Virginia FFA Association needed a way to honor the man who inspired its members and teachers for the past 30 years.
So the farm youth organization created the John H. Hillison Middle School Quiz Bowl Award to mark the retirement of the veteran Virginia Tech professor and administrator.
“John Hillison has been an inspiration for all agriculture teachers in the state,” said Susan Shomo, agriculture education teacher at Beverly Manor Middle School in Staunton.
A former student of Hillison’s, Shomo said, “He has allowed us to ask questions. … He helped us find the answers to help us become better teachers.”
Hillison, who has been at Tech since 1976, described himself as pleasantly surprised when the new award was announced at a recent FFA convention.
The award will provide money to help the state winner in the FFA Middle School Quiz Bowl attend the national FFA convention.
Hillison retires at the end of this month as professor and department head of agricultural and extension education at Tech. This week, he is taking part in the Virginia Association of Agricultural Educators Convention in Richmond.
Hillison said he has learned an important fact about agricultural education.
“The most important person is the classroom teacher and FFA adviser,” he said.
He is looking forward to staying involved, teaching at least one class a year at Tech and volunteering in the agricultural education department at Blacksburg High School.
Shomo credited Hillison with helping Virginia middle school agricultural teachers develop “Ag in the Classroom Curriculum,” a program keyed to the state’s Standards of Learning.
Hillison is known throughout the nation as an FFA historian. This interest is fueled by his work at Virginia Tech, birthplace of FFA. The FFA History Room is just down the hall from his office in Litton Reeves Hall at Tech.
Hillison, an Illinois native who got his doctorate at Ohio State University, was featured in the June 2006 edition of FFA New Horizons, the magazine of the national FFA organization.
