This year’s search is over.

Jimmy Sumner of Tifton found the Cici’s Pizza Pursuit cheese shaker Friday morning on Harold Tyson Road, winning $500 and a $100 gas card. Clues leading to the shaker’s hiding place had been published in the Gazette’s classifieds since late October.

“I went out at 7:30 this morning, and when I came back in the house I had (the shaker) hidden under my arm,” Sumner said. “I thought I’d surprise my wife, but the first thing she said was ‘You found it, didn’t you.’”

Sumner, who lives on Jacob Hall Road near Walker-Mount Olive Church Road, said he’d been looking for the shaker in the area around his home and “drove around some.” He didn’t search Thursday because of the rain, but headed out Friday after seeing the clue “Under the big pine.” Nothing turned up when he looked around a big pine tree at an intersection on Harold Tyson Road, and he was driving home when he saw another big pine next to a driveway into the woods.

“I remembered the clue about walking the line and wondered if it might mean a fence line. There was a big fence post right there, and I moved some pine straw to the side and there it was,” Sumner said. “I said, ‘No, that can’t be it,’ but it was.”

Sumner said he had just given a couple at his church $450 to pay their rent and had no expectation of being repaid. “The Lord provided it for me,” he said. “He blessed me. I’d given this same couple $50 for groceries once before, and then my sister sent me a card and it had $50 in it. That’s how it works.”

The shaker was hidden between Ferry Lake and Bowen roads on Harold Tyson Road, not far from its intersection with Jehu Tyson Lane.



To contact Managing Editor Florence Rankin, call 382-4321, ext. 203.