The Bicycle Ride Across Georgia (BRAG) is rolling into Tifton again on Monday, June 3. 

The host committee from the Georgia Museum of Agriculture and the Tifton-Tift County Tourism Association are rolling out the red carpet for about 1,000 people, including cyclists, their families and friends.

"Tifton hosted BRAG in 1994 and 2000, and we're honored to have them back. This group of enthusiasts can help spread the word about Tifton around the nation and the world," said Tyron Spearman, Tifton-Tift County tourism coordinator.         

BRAG 2013 is June 2 through 8, beginning in Cordele and ending in St. Marys. BRAG officials said the daily distance traveled will average 59 miles, with a total distance of about 359 miles. There will be an optional Century Ride (100 miles) on Wednesday, with a free BRAG century bandanna to the first 125 finishers. Overnight stays are planned for Cordele, Tifton, Douglas, Waycross, Brunswick and St. Marys.

The Tifton-Tift County Tourism Association will operate free, continuous shuttles to area motels, restaurants, shops and Downtown Tifton to the BRAG group. 

The Wiregrass Quilters Guild and personnel from the Georgia Museum of Agriculture and Historic Village at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College will spend the summer developing a design for a new barn quilt project to be unveiled at the 2014 Folklife Festival and Annual Quilt Show.

Museum Gallery Coordinator Polly Huff said barn quilts are painted quilt squares usually made on boards and then mounted on a barn. The history of the American Barn Quilt can be traced back almost 300 years to the arrival of immigrants from Germany, Austria and the Netherlands.

"Around the 1840s, barn painting and decorating became an actual trade with specialized artisans," Huff said. "These artists combined many folk designs as well as specific geometric patterns from quilt squares. The craft flourished over the next several decades."

Once the Wiregrass Quilters Guild completes the design this summer using a pattern representative of the wiregrass area and the time period represented by the museum, it will be transferred to outdoor grade sheets of wood and painted by the Quilters Guild, local artists and volunteers during the winter.  

Next April, the GMA and Quilters Guild will host a "Quilter's Picnic" beside the Opry Shelter for the dedication and unveiling of the barn quilt  which will be hung for permanent display to coincide with the 2014 Annual Quilt Show at the museum during the Folklife Festival.