Jeff Sinyard named to Georgia REACH scholarship Board

ALBANY — Albany businessman and former Dougherty County Commission chairman Jeff “Bodine” Sinyard has been appointed to the state REACH Scholarship Board by Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal.

REACH is an acronym for Realizing Educational Achievement Can Happen. In a program overview, Deal states: “To have a successful future in Georgia, and remain competitive nationwide and globally, we have to have an educated workforce, that the means we need to do a better job getting people into college, make sure they receive a high-quality education and then graduate them.”

A part of the Complete College Georgia Initiative, REACH is a needs-based mentorship and scholarship program designed to encourage students, starting in middle school, to be persistent in their educational pursuits by providing them with the academic, social and financial support they need to graduate from high school, get into and be successful in college, and be prepared when they enter the workforce. Launched by Deal in February 2012 at Georgia Tech, REACH is a public-private scholarship program that worked with 23 school system in the 2014-15 school year. Officials with the program say that 100 percent of funds raised for the program go to scholarships.

Sinyard is owner/president of Adams Exterminators in Albany and is on the Board of Natural Resources, the board of directors of the Suntrust Bank of South Georgia, the board of trustees of Darton State College, the Albany Dougherty Payroll Development Authority, the Georgia Military Affairs Coordinating Committee, the Georgia Elections Advisory Board, the Georgia Structural Pest Control Commission and the Board of Governors for the Georgia Chamber of Commerce. Sinyard also is chairman of the Dougherty Area Regional Transportation Authority.

Deal also appointed to the REACH Scholarship Board Matt Arthur of Lakemont, deputy commissioner of the Technical College System of Georgia, and Joe Sam Robinson of Macon, president of Georgia Neurological Institute.

The 28 appointments Deal made to various state boards on Friday also included syndicated columnist and author Ronda Rich, whose Dixie Divas column is carried each Wednesday in The Albany Herald’s SouthView features section. Rich, a resident of Clermont, was named to serve on the Franklin D. Roosevelt Warm Springs Memorial Advisory Committee. In 2014, her novel “The Town That Came A-Courtin’” was made into a TV movie.