OCILLA — The search for a missing teacher has mobilized the residents of Ocilla to find some answers.

Tara Grinstead, 30, of Ocilla, was last seen at about 11 p.m. Oct. 22. Despite rumors to the contrary, she still has not been found more than a week later. That has not stopped the efforts of an army of concerned Ocilla residents.

Teachers who worked with Grinstead, her students and other worried Irwin Countians have banded together to spearhead the search for the missing Irwin County High School teacher.

Within hours of the discovery that she was missing, thousands of fliers had been handed out, and the community has since raised a reward for her safe return which now stands at $25,000. The residents have started a Web site, www.findtara.com, and transformed a senior citizen’s center into a command center for the search. There they monitor incoming e-mails, coordinate search efforts, host media interviews, share stories and feed the searchers.

“We may not be doing everything right, but it’s coming from our hearts and we just do what we do,” said Jenny Abercrombie, ICHS department chair of social studies. Abercrombie is Grinstead’s friend and headed the department where the missing woman was an 11th-grade U.S. history teacher.

The story of Grinstead’s disappearance has garnered national media coverage including from Fox News, CNN, and Court TV. However, even as the search for the beauty queen captures attention across the country, the heart of the search is at home and in the people who knew her.

“We want her here,” said Abercrombie. “We want her home.”

On Saturday, Oct. 22, Grinstead helped girls prepare for the annual Miss Sweet Potato pageant. A former beauty queen herself, she enjoyed helping girls with their hair and makeup for the contests. She attended the pageant and then went to a barbecue at the home of Irwin County’s former superintendent, Dr. Troy Davis.

After the barbecue is when the questions begin.

Grinstead apparently went home to her house on Park Street, a quiet, residential neighborhood in the middle of Ocilla. The clothes she wore that night were found hanging up inside, her shoes deposited on the floor. But what happened that night when she went home? Where did she go from there?

Joe and Myrtle Portier are Grinstead’s neighbors and were very close with the single woman. When she left town, they looked after her pets, a German shepherd named Dolly Madison and a cat named Herman Talmadge. The names of her pets are signs that, as her friends attest, Grinstead is an avid lover of history.

The Portiers never saw her bedroom night light come on Sunday night and found that fact to be mysterious. About midnight Sunday, Grinstead’s mother called them to ask if they had heard from her daughter.

“Normally we saw her on an everyday basis,” Joe Portier said. “I told her we had not seen her and her mother sounded concerned.”

Although the Portiers had a key to her home, he said they did not want to invade their neighbor’s privacy. But when they woke up Monday morning and saw that there was still no sign that Grinstead had been home, they investigated. They found a scene that has been puzzling friends, families and police members for over a week now.

Her door was locked, but her car was still parked in the carport and the doors to it were unlocked. The Portiers found the shoes in the floor and a lamp that had been knocked over and broken in her bedroom. Her alarm clock was lying on the floor near her bed, and the time was off by several hours. Her cell phone, with which she was seen Saturday, was placed on a charger.

None of those things are necessarily signs of foul play, but they provoke curiosity.

“Had we known it was a crime scene, we would have probably backed off and not touched a thing,” said Joe Portier.

He said that he called ICHS and asked if Grinstead had called in to work, and found that she had not. As a city councilman, he had Police Chief Billy Hancock’s phone number in his cell phone and he called the chief directly. The investigation into Grinstead’s disappearance began.

Now locals are hoping for the best but fearing the worst with many questions on their minds.

If Grinstead left on her own then why did she leave, where is she now and why has she not come home? If she was the victim of a crime, then why did someone target a person who is so well-loved?

According to her friends, Grinstead is a caring, Christian woman with a great love of education. Not only did she enjoy teaching, she treasured her own education. She already held a master’s degree and had recently been accepted for the doctoral program at Valdosta State University. A talented singer, she helped organize a beauty pageant and a talent show at school. She tithed 10 percent to her church every paycheck.

But now she is gone and police have not ruled out any possibility.

Grinstead’s family has turned to a new route to help bring her home. They have a private recovery agent working with them and he has set up an anonymous tip line at (912) 386-2564. Calls may also be made to the Ocilla Police Department at (229) 468-7494 or its tip line at (229) 468-TIPS (8477).

Grinstead is a white woman about five feet, three inches tall and weighs about 115 pounds. She has long brown hair and brown eyes.



To contact reporter Dusty Vassey, call 382-4321, ext. 208.