TIFTON — Sixteen weeks of sequestering herself in a windowless room while she cataloged the archives of Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College has paid off for Polly Huff.

Huff, the curator at ABAC’s Georgia Museum of Agriculture and Historic Village, will receive the 2018 Award for Excellence in Archival Program Development on Oct. 16 at the Georgia Archives Awards Ceremony and Reception in Atlanta.

“It was just overwhelming considering the amount of material and the condition of some of the items,” Huff said when she completed the ABAC archival task in May. “I knew it could be done but I thought it would take a lot longer. My two interns, Britt Fuller and Will Hunnicutt, helped a lot. In 44 work days, we packed over 600 boxes.”

“The interns and I considered ourselves privileged to have had the opportunity to dust off and illuminate 110 years of stories that make ABAC who she is. What got us through the task was the goal of preserving those stories for the next few generations of students, staff, and researchers.”

Fuller and Hunnicutt will accompany Huff to the ceremony.

“At first, it was a little overwhelming, but I began to really enjoy reading the newspaper clippings and the letters from students,” Fuller said. “They told a story you don’t hear in the history of the school because it was more personal.”

“Not only was it cool to see ABAC’s past and everything that the school itself has been through to get where it is now, but in doing so I learned so many new organizational skills,” Hunnicutt said.

University System of Georgia (USG) Chancellor Steve Wrigley wrote a letter to Huff, commending her on the award from the Georgia Historical Records Advisory Council (GHRAC), which is the state’s advisory board to the Board of Regents of the USG with respect to the Georgia Archives and historical records throughout the state.

“GHRAC established the Archives Awards Program in 2003 to recognize outstanding efforts in archives and records programs in the State of Georgia,” Wrigley wrote. “Because GHRAC supports efforts to improve the condition of records statewide and to promote the educational use of Georgia’s documentary heritage, the Council is proud to honor your excellent work.”

Early in 2018, ABAC Vice President for Finance and Operations Paul Willis asked Huff to take two or three days a week from her regular duties at the Museum to scrutinize the roomful of documents, pictures, letters, catalogs, brochures, and other assorted ABAC memories in the archives room in the Carlton Center.

Willis knew the Carlton Center was about to be closed for renovation, and he wanted the items to be stored in a careful manner so that when the renovated building opens in 2020, they can be placed in a special room suited specifically for that purpose.

“The first thing we had to do was to get up everything that was stacked on the floor,” Huff said. “We had to make aisles so that we could walk around in the room.”

The oldest document that Huff and the students found was from Feb. 1, 1907. It was a letter that Gresham Manufacturing sent to Georgia Governor J.M. Terrell outlining a bid to construct an academic building and two dormitories at the Second District Agricultural and Mechanical School in Tifton.

Terrell accepted the $51,927 bid, and those three buildings were built. They are now called Tift Hall, Lewis Hall, and Herring Hall on the front of the ABAC campus. An oversized copy of the bid letter hangs in the History of ABAC exhibit in Tift Hall.