Tifton’s Georgia State Patrol Post 13 was named the 2007 GSP Post of the Year and the 2007 DUI Hero Agency Friday by the Mothers Against Drunk Driving’s Georgia chapter and the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety. Six Post 13 troopers were also honored individually for their excellence in DUI enforcement.

According to SFC Scott A. Woodell, commander of Tifton’s GSP post, the DUI Hero Agency award was a “very pleasant surprise.”

“I’m ecstatic. I’m like a proud papa,” Woodell said.

Woodell said the post and the individual troopers received their awards with no increase in manpower over the course of the year. The post competed against 47 other posts in the state and and won the honors based on the decision of a panel of judges who evaluated those posts’ enforcement performance. Before being appointed commander in Tifton last June, Woodell was the Albany GSP’s post commander in Albany. That post was nominated for the awards and placed second to Tifton.

“It makes me proud that the two were both nominated, but luckily, the one I’m at now got it,” Woodell said.

Troopers at the Tifton post made a total of 9,472 arrests in 2007, with 432 being for DUI, a 46 percent increase in the DUI arrests made the previous year. The post issued 7,536 warrants and worked over 911 crashes that resulted in 620 injuries and 20 fatalities.

Woodell said that of the 20 fatalities associated with wrecks, six were attributed to alcohol/and drug use. Those figures represent a decrease from 2006, Woodell said, when the post experienced eight alcohol and/or drug-related fatalities. In 2006, the post made 295 DUI arrests.

“They just got out there and did their jobs,” Woodell said. “It’s what they were hired to do, and it was because of their work ethic and pride in their profession.”

The DUI Hero Agency award was based on the post’s “outstanding persistence in lifesaving, enforcement and action programs that reduce drunk driving-related fatalities and accidents and the overall deterrence of DUI drivers,” Woodell said.

TFC David Sellars; TFC Richard Kennedy; TFC Ben Taylor; TFC Dana Harnage; and TFC Chris Jewell received individual awards for their “excellence in DUI enforcement” and were recognized as some of the lead DUI officers in the state.

“It takes a whole post to do this,” Woodell said. “Troopers are motivated by programs like this. It’s been a great day.”

The awards were presented by Denise Thames, the executive director of MADD Georgia.

To contact senior reporter Angie Thompson, call 382-4321.