The calendar may tell us it's still July, but Tift County public school students return to the classroom today to begin the 2022-23 school year.

"Our enrollment on the first day of school last year was 7,296. As of today, we are expecting 7,738 students," the Tift County School System said Thursday in a statement to the Tifton Grapevine.

"We expect that number to fluctuate over the next few weeks as enrollments and withdrawals from the summer continue."

The school system is offering online registration for students in grades 6-12; the registration deadline is Aug. 3.

For the school year, fall break is scheduled Oct. 13-17; Thanksgiving break, Nov. 21-25; and Christmas break, Dec. 19-Jan. 3. Spring break will be March 27-31; the last day of school for the school year is May 19; and graduation will be on May 20.

Tiftarea Academy begins its school year on Aug. 10.

After 16 years as president of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College (ABAC), Dr. David Bridges is leaving campus as president for the last time.

“I have done all I can do, and I don’t have any regrets,” said Bridges, who retires July 31. “It will be up to the members of the next leadership team to keep ABAC moving. I am confident that they will."

Dr. Tracy Brundage, previously president of Keystone (Pa.) College, becomes ABAC’s 11th president on Monday. Meanwhile, Bridges formally becomes director of the state Center for Rural Prosperity and Innovation. He has been its acting director since it was established in 2018 on the ABAC campus.

“It’s time to do something different,” Bridges said. “I have enjoyed my tenure as president of ABAC, and it’s been a great capstone to my career.”

Bridges said his primary advice to the new president is to "remain laser-focused on our mission; focus on who ABAC is and what ABAC can be. Don’t get caught up in who people think ABAC should be.”

Authorities have charged two men – one in Tift and one in Cook County – with drug and traffic offenses, the Tift County Sheriff's Office said Thursday.

On Monday, the Tift County Sheriff's Office, Georgia State Patrol, and Cook County Sheriff's Office arrested Chadwick Estrada, 38, of Doraville, along with Cornelius Keaon White, 41, of Tifton.

The Georgia State Patrol stopped Estrada for traffic offenses in Cook County, which led to a request for assistance from the Cook County Sheriff's Office K-9 unit.

Agencies recovered 46 pounds of marijuana and cash during the traffic stop. Estrada was charged with trafficking marijuana and traffic offenses, the Tift Sheriff's Office said.

White was arrested in Tift County after an attempted traffic stop, which led to a short foot pursuit by the Tift County Sheriff's Office. Authorities seized 46 pounds of marijuana and cash during the arrest. White is also charged with trafficking marijuana and traffic offenses.

Based on tips from the community, White's arrest, and a lengthy investigation by the Tift County Sheriff's Office, investigators established probable cause for a search warrant on Lake Larry Drive in Tift County, resulting in the seizure of an additional six pounds of marijuana and other narcotics, the Sheriff's Office said.

Tips may be submitted to the Tift Sheriff's Office at https://www.tiftsheriff.org or by downloading the Sheriff's Office mobile app.

Recently, I visited once again the Asa F. Tift home in Key West, my latest of several visits during the past 35 years. The old home built in 1851 is one of Key West’s top tourist attractions – not because Tift built it and lived there but because Ernest Hemingway acquired it and spent much of the 1930s there writing many of his seminal works.

Built with limestone mined on site, the grand old home is said to contain wood, pine of course, which came from Asa Tift’s South Georgia property east of Albany where Tifton sits today. Asa, with his brother Nelson, Albany’s founder, eventually sold much of that piney-wooded property to their nephew Henry Harding Tift, who established a sawmill there.

The homesteads that sprung up around Tift’s sawmill began being referred to as “Tift’s Town.” This year, we mark the 150th anniversary of Henry Tift’s settlement in those woods that became Tifton, Ga.

Henry Tift’s uncle Asa was the eldest son of Capt. Amos Tift, one of Key West’s early settlers. Upon Amos Tift’s death, Asa and his brothers took over their father’s Key West store, expanding the business to include most of the Mallory Square area. They were successful merchants, ship owners, ship and mail agents, operated a large ice house, and had a large warehouse to support the wrecking industry.

Asa Tift was one of Key West’s premier salvage wreckers. In those days, the first wrecker who reached a ship that ran aground on the Florida reef could claim the cargo, and Tift was often the first. He was an important figure in Key West’s history, and his bust is among those in Key West's Historic Memorial Sculpture Garden. An actor also portrays Asa Tift in the Key West Wreckers’ Museum.

On a recent sticky hot day, I found myself retracing steps from my past down Key West’s Whitehead Street to the “Tift-Hemingway House,” a place I first visited during the annual Hemingway Days Festival in 1987. In the intervening years, I have attended nighttime parties on the grounds of the old home, where I had my first taste of sushi, and even have sat on the side of Hemingway’s swimming pool, the first in Key West, and dangled my feet in its warm waters under the twinkling night sky and swaying coconut palms.

Although Hemingway is no longer home – and hasn’t been for a long while – one can sometimes still feel his presence at 907 Whitehead St. His writing studio over a former carriage house is preserved, and some of his furniture remains.

But on this visit, I came seeking Asa Tift, whose portrait still hangs both inside and outside the home, now a museum. Tift had very few happy days there; his wife and children died from yellow fever within three years of the family moving into the Spanish Colonial-style house. By the time Hemingway bought the property in 1931, it was in disrepair from years of neglect and required much work.

No, Asa Tift is not there. He is buried in Magnolia Cemetery in Charleston, S.C. What does remain is a house where its occupants in the 19th and 20th centuries made an impact on their world, and a house that, in its timber and woodwork, retains a part of that which became Tifton.

Tift County's total COVID-19 cases have risen by 272 in the past two weeks, a decline of 18 from the previous two-week period, according to the state Department of Public Health (DPH).

That number includes rapid tests and confirmed PCR tests. It represents only those results reported to the health department and do not include at-home testing.

Confirmed PCR tests during the past two-week period totaled 74. There were no additional related deaths reported in Tift County in the past week.

Tift County’s total positive cases represent 666 cases per 100,000 population, the measure used across the country to compare case rates among communities and states. Tift's testing positivity rate for the two-week period was 24.6%; a 2 percentage point drop from the prior period, the DPH said.

Tift has seen a total of 6,506 confirmed cases with 166 confirmed deaths, the DPH said.

The state has recorded a total of 2,126,403 confirmed cases and 32,396 related deaths, the DPH said. There were 30,916 more total cases reported in the past week and 95 additional deaths statewide. There also were 1,017 COVID-related hospitalizations in Georgia in the past week, the DPH reported.

The state reports COVID-19 data once a week.

While Georgia's June unemployment rate hit an all-time low of 2.9%, the jobless rate rose throughout the Tiftarea last month, according to data released Thursday from the Ga. Department of Labor (GDOL).

Tift County's unemployment rate was 3% in June, an increase from May's 2.3%. Tift's labor force numbered 21,337 for the month, the GDOL reported.

Statewide, jobs were up 18,100 from May to June and up 246,300 over the year. Georgia's unemployment rate was seven-tenths of a percent lower than the national June unemployment rate of 3.6%.

"We have never seen an unemployment rate below 3%," said Ga. Labor Commissioner Mark Butler. "The unemployment rate is decreasing exactly the way it should in a strong economy. We are adding new job seekers and they are quickly finding employment."

But counties in the Tiftarea experienced increases in their unemployment rates. The county rates in June versus the previous month's rates were: Turner, 4.6% vs. 3.8%; Worth, 3.3% vs. 2.6%; Irwin, 4% vs. 3.3%; Cook, 3.3% vs 2.8%; Berrien, 3.3% vs. 2.7%; and Ben Hill, 4.5% vs. 3.6%.

This is a busy week for the Tift County Parks and Recreation Department: On the heels of a large state swim meet last weekend in Tifton, a 40-team football tournament begins today at the E.B. Hamilton Complex.

Last weekend saw more than 250 swimmers and their families from nine counties come to Tifton for the Georgia Recreation and Park Association’s Class C state swim meet. 

“It was a blast,” said Tim Petrea, director of Tift County Parks and Recreation. “We want to thank our staff and volunteers for working hard to make it a great event. We were glad to welcome Appling County, Gilmer County, Pickens County, The Reynolds Plantation (Greene County), Morgan County, Lumpkin County, Jeff Davis County, Fitzgerald and Commerce.”

Appling County and Commerce were the top point finishers for the meet, Petrea said. Swimmers arrived in town on Thursday, July 21, and competed last Friday and Saturday.

“All of the counties were very appreciative to Tift County Recreation Department for hosting this event and for the opportunity to come back to Tifton,” Petrea said. “They look forward to joining us again next year." 

Today (Friday) more than 40 teams are in town to join Tifton in a tackle football tournament at the E.B. Hamilton Complex.

“The tournament management staff has been working with us since January to plan this event, the ‘Rank Up Tackle Football Tournament,’” Petrea said. “Teams are coming from at least four states.”

Tournament play begins today, and championship games will be played on Sunday. Local food trucks are providing a variety of options for visitors. 

“Rank Up is charging admission to offset costs for this event, and they encourage locals to come out watch some football,” Petrea said.

The Lifetime TV movie,"The Holiday Dating Guide," continues to be filmed around Tifton this week. In the photos above, some scenes are filmed at Tifton's Rutland Farms.

At left, through the magic of movies, snow appeared on Tifton's Main Street outside the Tift Theatre the other day.

Other scenes have been shot at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College and at several sites in Downtown Tifton.

The holiday TV movie, starring Maria Menounos, is expected to air during the 2023 Christmas season.

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This Saturday, July 30, is International Day of Friendship, designated by the United Nations General Assembly. On this day, we are reminded to promote and encourage peace, happiness, and unity through friendships. In 1919, the United States participated in an unofficial Friendship Day long before the U.N.’s official designation.

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"Bark Twain," who is a friendly pooch, is among the pets available for adoption at the Tift County Animal Shelter on Highway 125 South between 1-6 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. For additional information, call 229-382-PETS (7387).

205 Belmont Ave., Tifton, 229-382-6055  

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