The 1927 National Vocational Agriculture Insignia Contest, and the Winner is … (1/9/2026)

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in·sig·ni·a, noun, a badge or distinguishing mark of military rank, office, or membership in an organization, an official emblem (Oxford Languages)

Footnote Preview: During the 1920s the leadership of the profession strongly believed there was a need for an insignia for Vocational Agriculture. There was a great deal of discussion about possible designs. Finally, a national contest for students of vocational agriculture was held and a winning design was selected. After extensive searching, spanning numerous years, I located a description of the winning design; but alas, there was no image to accompany the description. However, with the emergence of AI (Artificial Intelligence) it was possible to create a possible reproduction of the winning design. It will be revealed at the end of this Footnote. Now, on with the story.

The Story Begins

At the meeting of the Agricultural Section of the American Vocational Association on Friday, December 3,1926 in Louisville, Kentucky, J. A. Linke expressed the need for a national insignia for vocational education in agriculture (Linke served as the federal agricultural education agent for the Central Region). He showed several possible designs and recommended the appointment of a committee on national insignia (American Vocational Association, 1927, p. 24).

The fact that Mr. Linke showed suggested designs indicates there had been previous thoughts and discussion about the need for a vocational agriculture insignia. It is highly probable that he showed an insignia adopted by the agriculture teachers in Missouri. At the seventh annual conference of teachers of vocational agriculture in Missouri (October 13-15, 1926) the teachers unanimously adopted an insignia for vocational agriculture. Mr. Linke attended that conference.

What did the Missouri Vo Ag insignia look like? It consisted of a black background in the shape of Missouri. Superimposed was a golden corn kernel with a half sun rising from the crown. The words Success, Service, Skills, and Studies appear on the four sides of the insignia. See Figure 1 for more information about the insignia.

Figure 1. Information about the Missouri Vocational Agriculture Insignia.
Left image from The Milan Standard of Milan, Missouri on November 11, 1926.
Right image from the Columbia Missourian, November 29, 1926.

The Horseshoe Insignia

Another Vo Ag insignia displayed by Linke at the 1926 AVA conference was a horseshoe insignia. While the writeup of the 1926 AVA convention does not specifically identify the insignias displayed or that a vote was taken, later evidence indicates the delegates at the convention voted to use the horseshoe emblem as the national insignia for vocational agriculture. See Figure 2.

 

Figure 2. Image from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, September 30, 1927.
Note the letters V. A. appear in the center for Vocational Agriculture
and Farm Life appears on the edge of the horseshoe.

In the regional agricultural education conferences held in 1927, after the 1926 AVA convention, there was considerable discussion in each region about insignia. The first of the four regional conferences, the North Atlantic Region, was held in New York in February of 1927. The following resolution was passed:

Whereas the representatives of vocational agriculture assembled at the annual meeting of the A.V.A. at Louisville had little time to deliberate or consult with art critics on the matter of a design for a national insignia for vocational agricultural pupils, and

Whereas the design adopted at said convention has not met with unanimous approval and has been severely criticized by authorities on design: Be it

Resolved, that the National Committee be requested to arrange for a national contest for a design for a national insignia, with the recommendation that they consider the offer of Mr. M. W. Welch, of $100 to be awarded in prizes for the contest, and that the judges of the contest include at least one competent critic on design.

The Mr. Welch identified in the resolution was the owner of the W. M. Welch Scientific Company of Chicago. Apparently, the company wanted to produce and sell the insignia. In Volume1, Issue 1 of the Agricultural Education magazine (1929, p. 7) we learn “The vocational agriculture insignia are available on buttons, shields, and standards from the W. M. Welch Scientific Company of Chicago.”

At the conclusion of the 1926 AVA convention mentioned earlier, four committees were appointed in the agricultural education section:

  • Committee for the Dairy Judging Contest
  • Committee on Insignia
  • Committee for the General Livestock Judging Contest
  • Committee on Research

The members of the Insignia Committee were:

  • Chairman, J. A. Linke, Federal Board for Vocational Education, Washington, D. C.
  • William Kerr, Director of Vocational Education, Boise, Idaho.
  • Sherman Dickinson, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri.
  • Paul Chapman, State Director of Vocational Education, Athens, Georgia.
  • H. O. Sampson, Agricultural College, New Brunswick, New Jersey.

If you examine the geographic distribution of the committee members you will realize there was a representative from each of the four Federal Board supervisory regions.

The National Insignia Contest

It did not take long for the North Atlantic resolution to be realized. In the May 1927 issue of the American Vocational Association News Bulletin (p. 39) we learn:

A prize of One Hundred Dollars ($100.00) has been offered by the W. M. Welch Scientific Company for the best design of insignia as a national emblem for Vocational Agriculture in the country. This is the outgrowth of the work of the committee on Insignia and its report at the Louisville Convention of the A. V. A. The prize of One Hundred Dollars is offered in order to stimulate the students to suggest the most appropriate design. The rules have not been finally made, but an announcement will undoubtedly be coming from the committee, of which Mr. J. A. Linke of the Federal Board at Washington, D. C. is the Chairman. It is contemplated that each contestant will be asked to submit a brief description with the design, telling the particular significance of the design. It will be interesting to see the outgrowth of the contest as at each of the Regional Conferences there has been a marked divergence of opinion as to the form of design. This has varied from the horseshoe with the significant V. A. which was submitted and tentatively adopted at the Louisville meeting to the Pennsylvania design, emblematic of a sower with the marginal horn of plenty.

So what were the rules for the contest? The Honolulu Star-Bulletin (September 30, 1927) published the rules and even included a drawing of the horseshoe insignia which was said to have been tentatively adopted in Louisville. See Figure 3.

Figure 3. Honolulu Star-Bulletin, September 30, 1927.

So Who Won the Insignia Design Contest and What Were the Winning Designs?

 In third place – we don’t know! I have not been able to identify the third place finisher.

However, it appears that the top three boys in each state received a certificate from the Agricultural division of the American Vocational Association for their entries in the national insignia contest. According to the Clark County Courier (May 11, 1928) Charles Russell of Kahoka, Missouri was one of the top three in Missouri. His certificate was to be presented at a school assembly. George Taylor of Smith Hill, Virginia was one of the three state winners from Virginia (Bryant, 2001). A copy of a state winner certificate is shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. The insignia design contest certificate awarded to George Taylor of Virginia. The words “National Vocational Association” should be “American Vocational Association.” In December of 1925 the National Society for Vocational Education changed their name to the American Vocational Association which might have led to the confusion.

In second place was Ward Fisher of Walnut, Illinois. An article in The Pantograph of Bloomington, Illinois (February 3, 1928) described Ward’s entry as depicting a farm boy plowing a field. On the plowshare was the national shield signifying the scope of vocational agriculture. In front of the boy was the rising sun and above him the torch of knowledge.  The words “Learning, combined with skill, leads to a new day” apparently were on the design.  See Figure 5.

The news article indicated that the top three designs would be merged to create a national insignia for vocational agriculture. The article also mentions that a boy in New Jersey was the first place winner.

Figure 5. The Pantograph, Bloomington, Illinois, February 3, 1928

The first place winner was Frank Supplee of Glassboro, New Jersey. An article in The Future Farmer’s Yearbook of 1928 published by the Young Farmers’ Association of New Jersey contained an article about Frank and his design. See Figure 6. There was no image published with the story but the description reads:

On the upper half of the image is a caterpillar tractor pulling a disk harrow. In the background is a farm house with a modern barn and silo. The sun was rising over the farm depicting a new era in agriculture. On the lower half of the design was a grain cradle, a sickle, an old fashioned plow and a hand-bound sheaf of wheat. This represented the past of agriculture.

Figure 6. From The Future Farmer’s Yearbook 1928.  Published by the Young Farmers’ Association of New Jersey

I have searched the archives of the Agricultural Education Division of the American Vocational Association in an attempt to find the drawing submitted by Frank but was not successful. So I asked my adult daughter, Carolyn, to see if she could use her AI tools to create the image based on the description in the above article. It was a challenge because AI doesn’t recognize the 1927 era items mentioned in the description. Also we don’t know if a circle, triangle, square or some other shape we used to outline the design. Since one article mentioned the top three designs were to be combined,  we used the shield mentioned in the second place design and the words vocational agriculture that Frank used in his narrative to create our interpretation of what Frank might have designed. We know it is probably not exactly the same as Frank’s design but might be a close facsimile. See Figure 7.

Figure 7. A possible depiction of the 1927 Vocational Agriculture insignia
as interpreted by Carolyn Moore Bookholt.

Concluding Remarks

Since the Agricultural Section of the American Vocational Association appointed an Insignia Committee in 1926 and cooperated with the W. M Welch Scientific Company, wouldn’t it be neat to repeat that process in anticipation of the 100th celebration of that event and have a national competition 100 years later to see what type of insignia would be developed to depict agricultural education today? Would it feature test tubes, DNA, drones, etc.? Hmm! This might be a good assignment for your students.

References

American Vocational Association News Bulletin (1927), Volume 2, Issue 1.

Bryant, B. W. (2001). History of the Virginia FFA Association (Dissertation). Blacksburg: Virginia Tech. https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/handle/10919/26640

Committees on Agricultural Education (1927, November). American Vocational Association News Bulletin. Volume 2, Number 4.