After 36 Years at the Helm, Woolsey’s Mayor Laggis to Step Down

Most readers are doubtless aware of the three southeastern Fayette metropolises of Inman, Lowery, and Griggsville.  But a well-kept secret right in the midst of those giants is Woolsey, a jewel of a village on Georgia Highway 92 South just north of the Spalding County line.   Incorporated in 1893, Woolsey was named for Dr. Isaac Gray Woolsey (1828-1902), a physician, planter, Confederate veteran, and community leader who settled there just after the War Between the States. 

While “WOOL-zee” seems to be the most common modern pronunciation of the village’s name, that contemporary articulation grates a bit on the native Fayette ear.  The Woolsey family, many of whom still live in the metro-Atlanta area, pronounce the name, “WOOL-see” – with no “Z” sound within a hundred surrounding miles.   If you can’t break yourself of saying “WOOL-zee” instead of “WOOL-see,” don’t fret too badly – the real troglodytes are the folks who take one look at the village’s lyric name and come out with “WOOZE-ley,” which truly is an abomination before the Lord.

Downtown Woolsey consists of the old Baptist Cemetery; the Masonic lodge building; the old brick building housing Cony Mason’s Antique Shop and Produce Market, behind which is old Woolsey Baptist Church building, dating from the 1880s; Woolsey Town Hall; and a convenience store.    

The Woolsey Town Hall is a re-purposed 1880s building that for years was a general merchandise store.  Re-tooled in recent years, it is a mixture of a renovation and a restoration in the best sense that those very different disciplines can combine – and is a pleasant, attractive, and functional space that in many ways is a museum of historic Woolsey artifacts. 

Across Hampton Road from there, the old Woolsey Baptist Church building and cemetery are now under ownership of Friends of Historic Woolsey, Inc., a not-for-profit organization, which is raising funds for a sensitive and historic restoration/renovation of the building to something approximating its original 1880s appearance, for use as a community center and event venue for the town.  More on this important endeavor can be found at https://friendsofhistoricwoolsey.org.  

A top-notch fellow named Gary Laggis has been the official face of Woolsey, its chief booster, and its mayor for 36 years now, but has decided to step down at the end of 2025.  Laggis, a commercial insurance broker who moved his family to Woolsey in 1985, says his first inclination to get involved in local affairs came near the end of that decade when a convenience store and gas station was built in Woolsey over the objection of most folks who lived there.  

He says the ongoing coverage by local and even national media, brought to light that Woolsey and its council had virtually no formal methods in place to address such things as zoning, land usage, and building approval processes.  Woolsey, Laggis says, had not had an election in years and council meeting were held on an “as needed” basis.

Laggis decided to run for mayor, and his friend Frank Carden  for council.  Laggis laughs as he remembers that “To qualify to run, one went to Bub Carden’s Garage on Highway 92, where on an old, rounded-off red and white Coke machine was taped a sign-up sheet to run for public office.  A pencil hung on a string with an envelope attached in which to place your $5.00 qualifying fee.  The envelope displayed a handwritten note that said, ‘If you don’t have $5.00, we’ll catch you later.’”

When the Woolsey Town Council met in those days, it met in the Masonic lodge downtown.  Laggis laughs as he remembers his and Frank Carden’s initial swearing-in:  “We had forgotten to get a key for the lodge, so we sat on the tailgate of Frank’s old pickup truck parked under a big oak tree, and the judge swore us in there.” 

Laggis remembers things went pretty smoothly for the first four years, till 1993, when the General Assembly was considering revocation of town charters for towns in Georgia that did not offer at least three services.  Some 700 small towns across the state would have been affected.  “We worked with our state rep, Dan Lakly (1942-2007) to get the language changed to ‘directly offer, or contract with another entity to offer, at least three services.’ Then we worked with the county to formalize intergovernmental agreements, and our town charter was saved.  We have since been able to continue operating as an incorporated town and work to control our own destiny, and our charter was saved just in time for Woolsey’s Centennial celebration in October 1993, when we had a town picnic and ceremony where a monument and flagpole were placed at town center, and a time capsule buried, which is to be opened in 2043.”

In his first decade in office, Laggis remembers that Woolsey hired its first outside-of-council town clerk.  The town also formulated and adopted its first Comprehensive Plan as mandated by the state, its first zoning ordinances, its first Development and Subdivision regulations, its first beer and wine sales ordinance, and multiple other measures designed to support the Town’s organizational needs. “These included beer and wine taxes, occupational permits, franchise fees, insurance license fees and premium taxes, and other similar charges,” Laggis adds. He smiles as he recalls, “When I was first elected in 1989, the Town of Woolsey had no income and did not even have a bank account.” 

A fairly recent highlight of Laggis’s career, and one of his proudest accomplishments, is Woolsey’s Town Hall and Community Center, mentioned earlier.  “That 1880s building was given to the town by members of the Ballard and Norton families, and we were proud of having built significant enough relationships with the other Fayette mayors and county officials to get our renovation/restoration project included on the county’s 2017 Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) referendum.   Such inclusion funded the renovation and restoration.

“In late 2018, the restoration complete, we held an open house for our resident and community, followed by a ribbon-cutting ceremony with local, county, and civic leaders.  The building design and décor provide a sort of walk back in history, highlighting the look of the original old-style mercantile as it must have appeared over a hundred years ago.  Since then, our Town Hall and Community Center facility has hosted numerous private and public events, and has been a highlight for bringing together the community for their gatherings and functions.”

He goes on to state that in early 2020, Woolsey hired its first zoning administrator on a contract basis; theretofore, all zoning decisions and work were handled directly by mayor and council.   And in 2024, the Town of Woolsey worked with Friends of Historic Woolsey, Inc., to apply for a grant from the Fayette County Development Department, which, having been granted, will go a long way toward paying for the cost of renovating historic Woolsey Baptist Church. 

As he contemplates his last few months in office and the end of his long tenure as Woolsey’s mayor, Laggis’s focus seems to be on an over-riding community safety issue – the dangerous and busy intersection of Hampton Road and Georgia Highway 92.   Hampton Road intersects Hwy. 92 from the west at a point maybe 500 yards north of its intersection from the east. “We’ve been working with Fayette County Public Works and the Georgia Department of Transportation since 2020 for implementation of a traffic improvement plan for this dangerous intersection.  We appreciate the opportunity for having input to these necessary and long overdue improvements.”

Thirty-six years of service to his town:  Gary Laggis deserves a medal for the days and days of time and energy he has spent on Woolsey’s behalf over that truly amazing period of time.   And his wife, Pam, who helped him in more ways than can be named, deserves one, too.

Your correspondent, who himself has been mayor of Brooks since 2010, got to know Mayor Laggis through the monthly mayors’ breakfasts that have been occurring for the past fifteen or so years, and has admired his intellect, noted his fine sense of discernment, enjoyed his gentle but effective sense of humor, and has come to value his friendship as highly as that of anyone he knows.  Gary Laggis is just good, plain folks as we say in the South, and good, plain folks are what we need to lead our communities – good, plain folks are genuine, they’re approachable, and they’re real, and Gary Laggis is all those things.  Woolsey, and Fayette County, should be thankful for his many, many years of service.