|
|
TIFT COUNTY
Tift County Industrial
Location: Tifton
Dates:
Named for:
Post-GIA:
Historical Average Daily Attendance:
Notes: Changed name to Wilson in 1957 or 1958. Industrial won the Class B football championship in 1950 and 1952 and were runners-up in 1949.
Further reading:
Wilson
Location: 510 West 17th Street - Tifton
Dates:
Named for:
Post-GIA: Matt Wilson Elementary
Historical Average Daily Attendance:
- 1959-60: 224
- 1966-68: 353
- 1968-70: 394
Notes: Football runners-up in 1965 and 1969. The county also experienced tragedy in 1959 when nine children drowned after a school bus overturned and fell into a pond near Brookfield
Further reading:
- School Bus Overturns in Pond, 9 Tift School Children Drown (Tifton Gazette, 03/04/1959)
- School Bus Crashes Into Pond; 9 Die (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 03/04/1959)
- Sorrowing Families Of 9 Plan Funerals; Fast Work Credited With Lowering Toll (Tifton Gazette, 03/05/1959)
- Bus Tragedy Draws Newsmen From Wide Area; Distraught Parents Converged on Hospital; First Arrivals at Bus Tragedy Tell of Panic, Frantic Rescue (Tifton Gazette, 03/05/1959)
- Both White and Negro Buses Overcrowded, Supt. Allen Says; Inquest is Planned In School Bus Wreck (Tifton Gazette, 03/06/1959)
- School Bus Accident Is Unavoidable (Rome News-Tribune, 03/11/1959)
- State Title Skirmish Lost By Wilson, 14-0 (Tifton Gazette, 12/06/1969)
- *Ten Years After: Was the Fight For Equality Worth It? (Lakeland (FL) Ledger, 12/02/1973)
* NOTES ON 1973 ARTICLE
- The Tift County High the author refers to was opened in 1966 when the high school portion of Omega was combined with Tifton, though funds for Wilson High were probably very slow and short in coming in.
- I don’t know if Sol Petiford was fired for speaking about the overcrowded conditions on buses, but it would have hardly been a revelation. Every article about the crash mentioned that the bus was overloaded. The school superintendent in Tift County told the local Gazette that overcrowding on all buses – white and black – was normal.
|