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The True Citizen, Wednesday, October 10, 2012 — Page 3
THREE'S A CROWD
Brothers left mark on BCHS before parting ways
Ben, an engineer at Plant
Vogtle, donned a Burke
County blue plaid kilt at
homecoming his senior
year.
By Anne Marie Kyzer
annemariek@thetruecitizen.com
They were those guys ... faces painted, covered from head to
toe in blue and silver and loud after every touchdown.
But football wasn’t the only season this trio of brothers was in
full force at Burke County High School.
Back when Ben, Drew and Tyler Hammett were roaming the
halls at BCHS, they seemed to have a hand in everything from
athletics to advanced placement courses.
And with just a year between each of them, the school felt
eight straight years of their presence. When they weren’t study
ing, playing sports or staying after school for club meetings,
they were most likely together.
“Our entire lives we played sports together, went to school
together and had the same friends,” Drew said. “All of us are
extremely close."
Ben ran track, played baseball and was captain of the debate
team before he graduated in 2004 and headed off to the Citadel.
Drew was the Bears’ second-baseman all four years of high
school, ran cross country, led the Interact Club and was named
to the homecoming court before turning his tassel in 2006 and
enrolling at Mercer University.
Both of them were voted by their classmates to have the Most
School Spirit, no strangers to showing out for big games.
They may have cheered loudest when their little brother Tyler
helped the Bears to Burke
County’s first region
championship in a de
cade. He set passing
records as quarterback in 2007, the first year head coach Eric
Parker came to town. Tyler was also jokingly referred to as the
"team tutor” and graduated as valedictorian of the Class of 2008.
He went on to play football at Davidson University in North
Carolina, where he received a number of academic scholarships.
The boys, the sons of Randy and Linda Hammett, said
they tried to soak up as much as the school had to offer
and felt like that helped them prepare for life afterwards.
If nothing else, Ben said, it helped keep him out of trouble.
But it also helped teach him time management, which I
was crucial as an electrical engineering major at the Cita
del. Now, he’s working back in Burke County as an engi
neer at Plant Vogtle.
Drew said all the AP courses, especially science and
math, helped him as he pursued environmental engineer
ing at Mercer. Drew’s now living in Atlanta and working
as an engineer for a utility consulting company.
Tyler said he was able to pursue a variety of interests at
BCHS, an approach he would continue in college with
involvement in athletics and other activities. He finished
his degree in May at Davidson, where he majored in math
ematics and minored in economics. Now he’s in Madison,
Wis., where he works for an electronic medical records
software company and is helping half a dozen hospitals
across the nation transition to paperless systems.
Though the three brothers are now spread from Burke County
to Big Ten country, Ben says they still touch base just about
every day, either by phone or over the Web.
And they were all together, of course, in Atlanta last Decem
ber when the Bears claimed their historic state football
championship. Among thousands of others in the Bear
Nation, they were as loud as ever after
every play.
Tyler jokes they have one annual date
they hold dear, Daytona on the Fourth
of July, which has become a tradition
for them as blossoming NASCAR fans.
“If we don’t see each other on Christ
mas, that’s one thing,” he said. “But if
we didn’t make the race in Daytona,
we’d be heartbroken.”
Drew, on the job above,
didn't mind showing out
rageous spirit for the
Bears at pep rallies, left.
Tyler, who now works for an
electronic medical records
software company, set pass
ing records as the Bears' quar
terback in 2007.
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