A new trooper who graduated with the 124th class of Virginia State Patrol troopers Friday will have ties to the Heart of Virginia.

Among the graduates is Thomas Robert Aaron Barnett, originally from Grundy, who is being assigned to Lunenburg County.

On Friday, Barnett and 43 other new troopers received their diplomas during commencement exercises at the State Police Training Academy in north Chesterfield County.

The new troopers have received more than 1,600 hours of classroom and field instruction in more than 100 different subjects, including defensive tactics, crime scene investigation, ethics and leadership, survival Spanish, police professionalism, firearms, judicial procedures, officer survival, cultural diversity and crisis management. The members of the 124th Basic Session began their 27 weeks of training at the academy in early May.

Barnett and his fellow graduates began reporting to their individual duty assignments Monday for their final phase of training. Each trooper will spend an additional six weeks paired up with a field training officer learning his or her new patrol area.