TIFTON KICKS OFF
CELEBRATION WITH A BANG!
FRIDAY NIGHT FIREWORKS AT AGRICULTURE MUSEUM
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A fireworks display, watermelon slices and music from singer and songwriter Kevin Mac highlight the annual Independence Day Celebration today, Friday, July 1, at the Georgia Museum of Agriculture (GMA) and Historic Village.
Singer Mac has worked with such entertainers as Britney Spears, Beyonce, Missy Elliott, Leann Rimes, Diamond Rio and Kenny Chesney.
Gates open for evening activities at 6:30 p.m. Guests may bring blankets and chairs to set up on the Opry Shelter lawn to hear live music beginning at 7:30 p.m., followed by a veterans' salute and the fireworks show.
For children, there will be an inflatable obstacle course and an 18-foot inflatable slide.
Admission is $10 per passenger car seating up to eight people, and $20 for larger vehicles. Veterans and current armed forces personnel will be admitted free with valid military ID.
Coolers, alcoholic beverages and pets are not permitted.
For information, call 229-391-5205
Among other spots to see fireworks this holiday weekend:
- * Marine Corps Logistics Base-Albany's annual celebration, 4-10 p.m. today (Friday). Military working dogs demonstrations, music and activities get under way in the afternoon before fireworks at dark. Visitors to the base may bring lawn chairs and blankets, but no coolers, alcoholic beverages or weapons. Call 229-639-5268.
* Wild Adventures Theme Park in Valdosta has two nights of fireworks at dusk on July 3 and 4. There is a park admission fee.
* On July 4, from 8-10 p.m., the SAM Shortline Train at Cordele blows the whistle for its BBQ & Fireworks On The Lake Express, including a barbecue dinner over Lake Blackshear and evening train ride through the countryside. On the return, the train parks on the Lake Blackshear trestle for a fireworks show over the lake. Call 229-276-0755.
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TIFT COUNTY CREATES
OWN FIRE DEPARTMENT
BREAKS AWAY FROM JOINT TIFTON CITY SQUAD
Effective
today, July 1, Tift County has created its own
separate fire department to handle the county's
unincorporated areas and the cities of
Ty Ty and
Omega.
Since
2004, the
county had
teamed with the
City of Tifton for
one joint city-county fire department to serve all of Tift County and all of its municipalities.
Last year,
Tift County commissioners said they had
concerns about equipment, safety and the city's leadership of the joint department.
City officials disputed the criticisms.
Last summer, the
Tift County Commission voted to
end the joint agreement and run its own department.
On
Wednesday,
Tifton City Council and
Tift County Commission had a short
joint meeting to discuss
division of assets as the fire departments split. The two bodies appear close to agreeing on the outstanding assets.
Tifton city residents will see
no changes in service with the split, as current city fire personnel will continue to handle calls within city limits, including extrication from vehicles. The
county will continue to
provide countywide EMS service.
Note: Grapevine Editor & Publisher Frank Sayles Jr. is a member of Tifton City Council and attended Wednesday's joint meeting in his role as District 4 councilman.
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BODY FOUND IN TIFTON FIRE
A
body was discovered inside a bedroom of a house that caught
fire about midday
Thursday in the
800 block of 14th Street
in Tifton, authorities say.
The body was badly
burned, and an autopsy will be performed to confirm the body's identity as well as the cause of death. WALB-TV reported late Thursday that the body was that of
John Aiken.
Arson investigators and agents with the Georgia Bureau
of Investigation were on the scene.
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OCILLA'S QUIET HERO
FORMER 'KIDS' HONOR SYLVESTER COLLIER
FOR MENTORSHIP 40 YEARS AGO
By CONNIE PRATER
For the Tifton Grapevine
In an age when so many children are growing up with missing, absent or disengaged fathers,
Sylvester Collier stands out.
The
77-year-old Ocilla native not only
raised his own children, but also
fathered, mentored and nurtured an estimated
200 to 300 boys and girls over
20 years.
Collier was honored Saturday at his
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Photo by Angela Pierce
Clifford Ross of Miami hugs Sylvester Collier (with his back to the camera) as Greg Claret, left, and Ronald Billy McGahee, look on.
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Irwin County home during an emotional and spiritual reunion with many of the youth he mentored 40 years ago at a Miami boys and girls club.
"We won when we got you into our lives,"
Greg "Juice" Claret of
Miami told
Collier. "You helped shape us into men. You did that; no one else."
Collier
often wept when he greeted the
"kids" he helped raise. The boys and girls he nurtured from the late
1960s and the
'80s say they carried what they learned under his mentoring into their adult lives. Some became teachers, police officers, professional athletes, city and county workers and members of the military.
About
two dozen traveled from
Oregon, the Carolinas, Tampa, Miami and
elsewhere in Georgia for the
reunion with their mentor. They presented him with hugs and kisses of gratitude as well as plaques and trophies.
"Forty years is a long time," Collier said to them. "I thought many of you had forgotten about me, but you haven't. This
means more to me than any silver and gold."
The reunion weekend featured a fish fry and barbecue, concluding with a worship service at Collier's church,
Christian Fellowship Tabernacle in
Ben Hill County. The visitors, who stayed at hotels in
Tifton and
Fitzgerald, all pledged to return next year for a second gathering.
Collier's involvement with
youth began in the
late 1960s in
Miami's Coconut Grove neighborhood, a predominantly black enclave of working-class families. When Collier began taking his own three sons to the nearby
Southwest Boys Club, he noticed there were few adults other than coaches accompanying the children to athletic events and practices. That's when he
stepped in to fill the void.
When the children needed money for membership dues to the club, he paid their way. When they needed a ride to their games and practice sessions, he drove or arranged for them. When they needed comfort to soothe bruised knees or other hurts, he hugged them. If they needed a stern hand or a belt, he gave that to them, too.
"He didn't just parent his children; he
parented everybody else's child around him," said
Robert "Big E" Corker, 58, a commercial truck driver who lives in
Morrow. Corker befriended Collier's son Tracy as a teenager and became a frequent dinner guest at the Collier home. Along with the food, Collier served advice.
"Mr. Collier always talked to us about being obedient and watching what you're doing out there," Corker recalled. "He had a lot of wisdom for us."
"Guys like that are few and far between. I've met only a couple that really cared about the kids like that," said
Samuel Dukes of
Villa Rica, a far west
Atlanta suburb. Now, 55, Dukes was eight when he met Collier.
Ronald "Billy" McGahee, 55, of
Miramar, Fla., explained why Collier is so important in his life: "When you got hurt, he held you. He told you everything is going to be all right. That's why everybody took to Mr. Collier."
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Photo by Angela Pierce
Sylvester Collier enjoying the reunion in Ocilla.
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McGahee said his own father had two jobs, and his mother was a homemaker raising 10 children. Neither had much time to take their kids to the park, but Collier made time.
"I wanted my father to be like Mr. Collier," said McGahee, a retired physical education teacher for
Miami-Dade County public schools.
"He always told you the rights and the wrongs, and the do's and the don'ts. He didn't scream and yell. He spoke to you with respect," McGahee said.
Those formative years at the youth club were "a part of my life that made an impact on me," said
Sandra Gale McArthur. "It was very, very instrumental in our lives," said McArthur, who went on to become a Miami city police lieutenant. What she and others learned were leadership skills and the importance of respect, fitness, good grades, punctuality, teamwork, sharing and caring for others.
When Collier led a push to add
cheerleaders to the then all-boys club, McArthur was one of the first girls to join. She and about 10 other girls met at another parent's single family home in the Grove to learn their cheer routines.
"Most of the kids lived in apartments," McArthur said, adding that she, her three brothers and single mother lived in a one-bedroom unit. Seeing the other family's style of living gave her hope. "I said, 'Wow, we can do better. We can live like this.' " McArthur said she was inspired to work hard to get what she wanted and got a job bagging groceries at
age 13 to help her family.
Collier didn't limit his mentoring to the boys and girls club youth. His former
City of Miami parks department coworker
says he
owes his life's success
to
Collier
.
Alfred Pitts, now a
retired Air Force colonel who works at the
Pentagon, was a
17-year-old high school dropout when he was partnered with Collier in a parks department service truck. During those hours on the road together, they formed a bond that would last
45 years. Collier talked at length about his boys club kids.
Then, he turned his attention to Pitts, who had quit school to work fulltime to support his pregnant girlfriend. "I took him under my wing," Collier said of Pitts, who had grown up in a
Miami ghetto surrounded by negativity and violence.
Collier told Pitts he was too smart and too young to be doing the kind of work he was doing and urged him to go back to school to get his
GED. Pitts turned 18 in
1971, shortly after he started working with Collier. When he told the older man that he hadn't registered for the draft and feared any penalties he might face for not registering, Collier counseled him to get registered. Collier then drove him to the nearest registration office and went inside to find out what was needed while Pitts waited in the truck. When he returned, Collier told him he could register without penalty, and Pitts signed up that day. He was amazed that Collier cared enough to do that for him.
"When you first meet someone like that, immediately you think, 'What's going on? Why is he going out of his way to help you out?' " Pitts said. "You realize he's genuine. He never wanted anything in return.
There's no doubt that he helped shape who I am."
Collier, who moved to
Miami in
1958 shortly after graduating from
Ocilla High and Industrial School in
Irwin County,
retired from the
Miami Parks and Recreation Department in
2006 and
returned to Ocilla. He continues to give back.
He and his wife,
Victoria, occasionally speak to youth at
Irwin County High School, joining them for lunch and urging them to stay in school and do well so that they can grow into outstanding men and women. Both Colliers have accompanied the Irwin Indians football team to the state championships at the
Georgia Dome in
Atlanta and
have
hosted cookouts
and an
Easter Egg hunt
at their home for young people from their church.
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LOCAL 'CELEBRITIES' CONTINUE TO 'READ ALOUD' TO CHILDREN
Tifton's "Read Aloud" initiative continues at the
Summer Accelerated Reader (AR) Center on
Tuesdays and
Thursdays.
This past week, Dr.
David Bridges, president of
Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College, at left, dropped by the center at the
United Way of South Central Georgia to read to children.
And on
Thursday
, retired educator
Eunice Mixon, pictured below,
brought along her copy of
"Peter Rabbit"
to read to the kids taking AR tests on books they have read.
The
reading center, run by the
Tift County Foundation for Educational Excellence, is open
Tuesday and Thursdays through
July 14.
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VA MEDICAL CENTER TO HOLD ANOTHER
INFORMATION SESSION IN TIFTON
The Carl Vinson Veterans Affairs Medical Center will host an informational fair at the
Leroy Rogers Senior Center in Tifton on July 15 from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. in anticipation of the opening of its new Tifton VA Clinic.
The fair will
provide information about VA programs and services and serve as a VA "meet-and-greet" with the Tifton community, says Tifton VA Clinic manager Donna Ammons. 
Veterans will hear about services to be provided at the Tifton clinic and how to start receiving their basic health care at the new location.
The Tifton VA Clinic will be located at 1824 Ridge Ave. North in Tifton. Hours of operation will be Monday-Friday from 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m.; services will include primary care, mental health and other basic health care. Additional services will be available through Tele-Health, a new VA initiative that allows veterans to access some healthcare needs using interactive visual technology.
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TIFTON MAYOR RECOGNIZED AT
STATE MUNICIPAL MEETING
Tifton Mayor
Julie B. Smith received a
Certificate of Recognition from the
Georgia Municipal Training Institute at the
Georgia Municipal Association's (GMA) 83rd
annual convention in
Savannah on
Monday.
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SMITH
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The
Georgia Municipal Training Institute, a cooperative effort of GMA and the
University of Georgia's Carl Vinson Institute of Government, provides a nationally recognized series of training opportunities for elected city officials. To receive a
Certificate of Recognition, a city official must complete a minimum of
42 units of credit, including at least
18 hours from the required list. The training program consists of a series of more than
50 courses.
"This is an outstanding achievement," said GMA Executive Director
Lamar Norton. "We commend
Mayor Smith for this accomplishment and for the dedication she's shown in using this valuable resource to become a more
effective city official."
Also while at the
Georgia Municipal Association,
Smith was sworn in on the
GMA Board of Directors, joining elected officials and professionals from across
Georgia who will serve implement programs, policy and training programs for GMA members.
City Council members
Wes Ehlers, Frank Sayles Jr., Jack Folk and Johnny Terrell attended the GMA meeting along with City Manager
Larry Riner, Finance Director
Lois Love, City Clerk
Jessica Jones and
Becky Moore, assistant to the city manager-mayor-council. All received
training hours for
taking classes on various segments of
city government.
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Tifton's Locally Owned Electronic Newspaper!
It's Free!
e-published every Tuesday & Friday / to advertise, call 478-227-7126
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YOUR WEEKEND
...at a Glance
FRIDAY, JULY 1
- "Independence Day Celebration," 6:30-9 p.m, Ga. Museum of Agriculture, Tifton
- Annual Independence Celebration, 4-10 p.m., Marine Corps Logistics Base, Albany
SATURDAY, JULY 2
- Downtown Tifton Farmer's Market, 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Old Train Depot Platform, Tifton
- Wiregrass Farmers Market, 9 a.m.-Noon, Georgia Museum of Agriculture, Tifton
- "Home Place" art exhibit opening, 10 a.m., Georgia Museum of Agriculture, Tifton
MONDAY, JULY 4: Happy Independence Day!
- "BBQ & Fireworks on the Lake Express," 8-10 p.m, SAM Shoreline Excursion Train, Lake Blackshear, Cordele
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JUNE 23
Barbara Sue Green McLendon, 62,
Tifton
Tommy Edwin Griffin, 71, Eldorado
Wanda "June" McBrayer, 61, Tifton
Weldon Gates Ford Jr., 78, Worth County
Helen Kaye Bruner, 74, Alapaha
JUNE 24
Betty Bussey, 72,
Tifton
Calvin E. "Bill" Lollis, 83, Adel
Shavonne K. Hillmon, Ashburn
JUNE 25
Susan "Melissa" Winser Childers, 41, Tifton
Stephen Jones Jr., 77, Sylvester
JUNE 26
The Rev. Daulton Jackson Blanchard Jr., 86, Tifton
Billie Sue Dean Summerlin Fountain, 74, Nashville
Betty Joyce Jackson Whitley, 82, Irwin County
JUNE 27
Clarence Amos Luke, 96, Nashville
The Rev. Smith David "Junior" Gentry, 82, Tifton
JUNE 28
Sharon Tillman Smith, 62, Irwin County
JUNE 29
Douglas Carlisle, 69, Tifton
Vera Corene Gaskins, 103, West Berrien
Mary Jane Grant, 61, Nashville
Amos Lamar "Buddy" Lindsey, 70, Nashville
JUNE 30
Mary Tillery, 77, Scooterville
Joyce Peacock Taylor, 75, Fitzgerald
Paul Drake, 87, Fitzgerald
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