Dates

• Existence: 1895 - 1984

Biographical Note

Harry Warinner Sanders, the son of William C. and Rosa Gary Sanders, was born in Dumbarton, Virginia on August 29, 1895. After graduating from Virginia Polytechnic Institute with a BS in agriculture (1916), Sanders worked as a teacher of vocational agriculture in Manassas, Virginia from 1917 to 1924, then as a district supervisor of vocational agriculture in northern Virginia from 1924 to 1925, when he was hired by VPI as an assistant professor of agricultural education. He married Julia Ayres Maloney (1896-1993) on August 31, 1921.

At a VPI on-campus conference in 1925, Sanders was one of the co-founders of a statewide program for high school vocational education, to be known as the Future Farmers of Virginia, which would eventually form the basis for a national organization, the Future Farmers of America. In 1927, Sanders received his MS from VPI and was named an associate professor of agricultural education that same year. From 1932 to 1933, Sanders was on leave in Puerto Rico, developing a vocational agricultural education program there. Beginning in 1934, Sanders played an important role in the expansion of VPI's Department of Agricultural Education, renamed the Department of Vocational Education. In 1940, Sanders was named professor of vocational education, and he served as department head from 1956 until his retirement in 1962. In 1963, he was named professor emeritus of vocational education. He was a member of Phi Kappa Phi, Omicron Delta Kappa, Alpha Zeta, the American Vocational Association, the Virginia Education Association, the Virginia Academy of Science, and the American Red Cross. Harry W. Sanders died on January 17, 1984, and was buried in Westview Cemetery, Blacksburg, Virginia.

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