Allen Simms was a 2011 graduate of UGA’s Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resource. We caught up with one of his former professors who said he was one of the forestry department’s top students, a hard worker and he was on the job until the end.

Dr. Richard Daniels, Professor of Forestry says, “I remember he drove his own truck to the conclave we held in Arkansas three years ago and he and another  student made a batch of diesel fuel, bio diesel and they tried it out on that trip to Arkansas. It’s fourteen hours on the road with a  a homemade batch of diesel. That was quite an adventure.”

According to the Georgia State Patrol the accident happened around 7pm on Highway 36 near Woodland Georgia. This is a radar shot of what the weather was like at the time of the acciednt A Tree fell onto the road and Simms tried to avoid it but the truck he was driving pulling a trailer crashed into a tree.

“I thought of him as a big guy with a big heart and he always had a great smile, almost a kid’s smile,not quite mischievous but always happy. I just hate that we lost him,” says Dr. Daniels.

Representatives from Warnell says the small college has be greatly affected by the tragedy.

Dr. Daniels says that Warnell is trying to plant a memorial Tree in Allen’s memory.

-Jeffrey McNair