Board Recognizes Baseball Teams

“We had a really good year,” was the understatement presented by Jeff Davis High baseball coach Paul Glass at Monday night’s Board of Education meeting.
It’s hard to imagine how it could have been much better.
The high school varsity won the Class AA State Championship, the jayvee team — with many of the team’s younger players suiting up with the varsity rather than playing jayvee — finished runner-up in its conference, the middle school blue team won its conference and the middle school gold team had the most victories in its history.
Glass said that while his varsity squad got off to a slow start, they began getting breaks here and there, then started playing better, and then got more breaks and, unexpectedly, some of the school’s biggest rivals were sitting home watching the Yellow Jackets play on their journey to the state championship.
“They went through some stuff to fight through,” Glass said of his players, “so when it really got tough, they really fought through it. I’m really pleased and proud of what these guys went through.”
School Superintendent Chris Roppe, who coached baseball along side of Glass at JDHS early in his career, lauded the Georgia High School Hall of Fame coach for being great at getting the best out of players, adding that Glass said one time, “Give me a
kid who will work hard over a player who is gifted with talent and doesn’t work hard.”
The high school and middle school baseball players were present for the meeting and were honored for their work.
Roppe didn’t wait to laude the school system’s transportation department under Transportation Director Alvin Merritt. Before Merritt came to the podium to make his report, Roppe shared that Merritt had planned to go deer hunting on the day of a cheer competition in Hazlehurst when he got a call that a school bus from an out-of-town school system was having problems and needed someone’s help. Merritt scrapped his hunting plans and came to the school where he worked on the bus for the visiting cheer team.
When he got to the podium, Merritt updated the board on various activities and introduced Transportation Department bus instructor Jessica Carelock who went over some of the things the department is doing to honor its drivers during National Bus Safety Week.
The motto for the week is “Together We Shine.” Carelock shared that Dairy Queen was giving bus drivers discounts on Wednesday and, along with other activities, she felt this would be one of the best Bus Safety Weeks ever in Jeff Davis County.
She highlighted some of the improved technology for the bus video system and shared that 26 buses were now air conditioned leaving only 10 buses without air.
Carelock also detailed the extensive emergency evacuation training practices in which both drivers and students participate to insure orderly evacuations in case of an emergency.
In other action, the board ….
…. approved a bid of $27,000 for fencing and six roll gates for athletic practice fields.
…. heard a financial update from Finance Director Betty Corbitt, who pointed out that the $212,948.18 Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax received in September was the most ever received for that month. “We’ll have enough to make all our debt payments and have more for future debts,” she said.