VALDOSTA — The Lowndes County Board of Education honored a teacher who is credited with thwarting an abduction last week at Westside Elementary School.

Kindergarten teacher Ginger Taylor was honored by the board and by Lowndes County Sheriff Chris Prine Monday evening.

“I’m honored to be recognized, but I’d like to give the glory to God,” Taylor said, “because He was there for me, protecting me, the child, every teacher on the playground, all my coworkers, and without Him, the child wouldn’t be here.”

Taylor received an extended standing ovation from the overflow crowd present at Monday evening’s board of education meeting for her role in thwarting the abduction.

Friday, a man believed by authorities to be a non-custodial father and a friend abducted the 5-year-old from Westside’s playground, according to authorities. Taylor tried to stop them but the men pushed her aside. She alerted the school resource officer who called a “be on the look-out” alert, according to reports. 

The suspects were apprehended driving to Valdosta Regional Airport where a rented plane reportedly awaited to return them and the child to Mississippi. The child was returned to his mother.

Westside Principal Suzanne Tanner, who introduced Taylor, said the child was kept safe through the hard work of Taylor, the school resource officer and Lowndes County sheriff’s deputies.

“Last Friday, our school faced one of the greatest fears an educator can have, and that is to have someone to take a child from our care by force,” Tanner said. “It’s unthinkable for us. We work hard to keep our children safe at all times, but it’s really hard to prepare for the unpredictable. When the time came and we were confronted with the emergency, each person had to use their wit and their courage to know what to do next.”

Tanner said she couldn’t be more proud of the staff of Westside Elementary, who she said worked without hesitation to handle the abduction.

“I can’t express how grateful I am to the sheriff’s department,” Tanner said. “Having a student resource officer on our campus made the difference in precious moments that changed the outcome to a positive one. The deputies were dispatched to us immediately and surrounded us with their support and expertise. The outcome for this sweet child was only possible through the effective partnership between our school system, the SRO and our deputies.”

Prine said the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office worked according to protocol established for an incident such as what occurred.

“We’ve set a protocol in the event something like this happens,” Prine said. “I certainly wasn’t expecting it to happen as soon as it did. But I certainly couldn’t have had a better witness than Ms. Taylor. She passed the information on to our SRO, they got in touch with 911, we dumped everybody out of the sheriff’s office. Everybody stopped what they were doing and focused on the school and the surrounding part of the county.”

Prine said Taylor provided a substantial amount of information about the suspect, much more than normal, which helped deputies capture him.

“She gave us the description of the car, we knew what the driver looked like, we knew the tag number, and that’s very unusual to have all that information,” Prine said. “Within 15 minutes, we had him cuffed and the child in custody.”

Prine expressed gratitude for the school resource officer program, which he said has “proven to be very helpful.”

“Our SRO program would not be here if it wasn’t for (school superintendent) Mr. Wes Taylor and this board,” Prine said. “They have worked diligently with me to get an SRO in every school, and it has been accomplished.”

Joe Adgie is a reporter for the Valdosta Daily Times.