Chipley, Florida High School will be the epicenter of activity at the end of July 2018 as a dozen state champion high school baseball teams make their way to Washington County for the 2018 Dixie Majors World Series Baseball Tournament.
‘We hosted the event for the first time 4 years ago’, said Chipley High School Baseball Coach Andy Compton in an interview with Real Florida Magazine. ‘and we bid on getting the tournament back here again a couple of years ago’.
‘Not only did we succeed in getting the tournament back in Chipley’, says Compton, ‘but we won an award for small rural market tournaments, based on the amenities we offered those teams attending in 2014’.
Compton recently appeared on local show ‘Real Florida Magazine’ with Coach Alex Webb to discuss the upcoming World Series event and the Chipley High School plans to make this year bigger than the 2014 event.
‘Every penny we raise in this event goes back into the Chiplry High School Baseball Program’, explained Compton, ‘and the proceeds from the 2014 event allowed us to contract with Florida Panhandle Technical College to build us a new locker room so that our players no longer have to change in the parking lot’.
Compton and Webb are spearheading a fundraising effort, aimed at returning alumni and those involved in the Chipley High School baseball program over the years, as well as local businesses who benefit from the impact of the tournament, to again raise enough money to put on the event.
‘The Washington County Tourist Development Council is giving us monies with which we will pay for motel rooms for all the visiting teams’, says Coach Webb, ‘and the economic impact of this group of players and their families here in town for a week is very strong’.
The action all starts in Chipley, Florida on the campus of Chipley High School on Saturday, July 28, 2018 and continues through Wednesday, August 1 as teams from Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee and Florida battle for the World Series Championships in Dixie Pre-Majors Baseball.
Compton and Webb are working with local public relations firm The Goulding Agency to market the event and bring awareness for Dixie Majors World Series, a prestigious event in and of itself, but hosted only by schools who themselves have worn their respective state baseball championship.
‘This event allows us to showcase our school and our community’, says Compton, ‘and last time all the restaurants were full, all motel rooms were booked, and local businesses felt a very positive impact. We hope that local businesses will again embrace the event’.
See more information and photos from the 2014 World Series in Chipley on Facebook at Chipley Dixie Majors Baseball, and listen to interviews with Compton and Webb, photos and video clips from the 2014 event, along with interviews business leaders and sports figures online at www.ChipleyDixieMajorsBaseball.com.