() – Not only did we have the honor of speaking with this month’s Salute to Service Honoree Alvin Jenkins, we got to surprise him too.

Alvin Jenkins was giving out awards at an event at Academy of Richmond County, but what he didn’t know was that he would be receiving an award as well.

“I’ve served for 20 years and four days,” said Jenkins. “I actually served 10 years in the Air Force first and then I transitioned to become a warrant officer in the Army before that program came back to the Air Force.”

The lessons that Jenkins learned while serving has stayed with him.

“Loyalty, discipline, but most importantly, service, it is important to serve,” he said. “I saw so many people doing things that they probably shouldn’t be doing because it belonged to somebody else to do, but they did it because it needed to be done, and that attention to detail, dedication to excellence, I just try to embody.”

After serving his country, Jenkins wanted to serve his community by helping others, whether it coaching, teaching or ROTC.

“Every time you go from one place to another, it’s your job to make that place better when you leave it, so when we got to Augusta in 2009 we just wanted to get involved. Our kids were at Langford Middle, we wanted to get involved, that’s where I started my track and field, went to Warner Robbins, Ga., started doing track and field there. When we got back here, I worked at Fort Gordon for a while but then that calling to serve brought me back to ROTC which is something I always wanted to do, and then along that same time frame I got ordained as a minister, so I’m currently preaching in Waynesboro, Ga. and I work here, I go to school and I do all sorts of things, just trying to help the community. I also volunteer at the Augusta Dream Center as well.”

Jenkins loves giving back and his students, and when he found out he was receiving the Salute to Service award, it meant a lot to him.

“It’s just a confirmation that you’re doing the right thing, a lot of times it’s not always perfect, sometimes you’re going to make people feel a certain type of way by the way that you conduct your business, but to know that people appreciate you and recognize the work that you’re doing is really good,” he said.

And he’s thankful for those that helped make him the man he is today.

“I got to thank God, I got to thank my wife who actually works here at the school as well, my children, my church, and I want to thank the community because if you’re a part of an organism, you should have some type of symbiotic presence with that organism and if I’m here in Augusta, I got to be a part of Augusta and what makes Augusta great, and I hope what we do here help set the seeds to make future leaders, future citizens great and continue to increase the CSRA.”