Thomas County Central High School Marching Yellow Jacket Band swarmed, and its fellow contenders felt the sting in a recent performance contest. The band competed against seven other groups from Georgia, Florida, and Alabama in the Battle on the Border Marching Band Competition at Martin Stadium in Valdosta on Saturday, Oct. 22. 

TCCHS received straight superior ratings for drum major, color guard, percussion and band. Additionally, it earned Best in Class AAA, Best Music Overall, the Jeff Lilly award for Most Entertaining Band, and first runner-up overall.

Quite an accomplishment on any day, TCCHS Band Director Joe Regina reveals the outcome’s especially commendable because his youth musicians also had the annual homecoming game, a mass band show with Thomas County Middle School students, and senior night the previous evening.

“Words cannot express how proud we are of our students for their efforts on Saturday,” he said. “We could tell very early on this season that we had a very special group of students marching this year.”

Members express similar enthusiasm for their results.

“I'm so proud and impressed by all our band members for putting their all into bringing home our awards,” sophomore clarinet player Bianca Torres, 15, said. “I know how hard everyone has worked, and I know how much we all deserve this win.”

Thomas County Schools celebrated National School Bus Safety Week during the week of October 17-21. The school system participated at each school by discussing bus safety with the students on the outside and inside of the bus. School Bus Safety Week is also a reminder for all citizens to exercise constant courtesy and caution when near school buses.

The Thomas County School System has 90 buses with 67 routes traveling 3,240 miles transporting 3,800 students per day. The county school buses travel approximately 600,000 miles each year bringing children to school and taking them home.

Thomas County Central High School Future Georgia Educators’ members competed in the Future Georgia Educators Region Competition Day Tuesday, Oct. 18. Club sponsors Amy Smith and Delisa Barrow took the group to Georgia Southwestern State University in Americus, where TCCHS student Shelby Wilbourn also served as a student ambassador and emceed the event. Two TCCHS teams won first and third places in the knowledge bowl; the top three teams in the region advanced to state competition for this category. The Future Georgia Educators State Competition will take place March 9, 2023 in Macon.

Thomas County first and second graders visit the Garrison-Pilcher Media Center regularly to check out books, enjoy read-alouds, and engage in interactive makerspace sessions.  A recent session revolved around the standards of nonfiction text features, force and motion, and life cycles.

Media Specialist Elexis Griffin began her lesson by comparing a non-fiction and a fiction book about pumpkins. Students were able to identify the general differences between the two types of text and then specifically discuss the text features that can be found in non-fiction books and how those help the reader understand the text. Griffin presented a timeline of how a pumpkin grows as well as a diagram of a pumpkin life cycle.  The comparison was extended with the reading of a fiction book called 10 Spooky Pumpkins, and Griffin acting out the story with her students.

To set the stage for the makerspace, students design their own "spooky pumpkin patch" by placing candy pumpkins in a field. Students were tasked with using craft sticks, clothes pins, rubber bands, twist ties, and spoons to create a harvester that will pick the pumpkins out of the field before a winter storm comes. After the young creators make their harvesters and test them out, they were given five minutes to try and harvest all of the pumpkins out of the field. If their harvester is not working, they have to fix what is wrong. Lastly, the students share why their harvester worked or did not work.