Incumbent seeks sixth term as Monroe County coroner; challenger calls for change

No one wants to get a knock on the door and be told a loved one has died.

Death notifications are just one of the duties assigned to the elected coroner, a position in Monroe County for which two men are seeking election this May.

Incumbent Coroner Joey Proctor is seeking a sixth term, campaigning on his experience, while challenger Randy Inglett wants to update the office and expand the services it offers. Both men are running as Republicans.

Voters will choose one of the men when they go to the polls May 24.

Proctor’s term isn’t set to end until the end of December. The election’s winner won’t be sworn into office until January 2017.

Proctor

Proctor ran unsuccessfully for coroner in 1992. In 1996, he was appointed to complete the unexpired term of then-Coroner Andy Dillon after Dillon’s death.

Before his appointment, he’d responded to death scenes while working for an ambulance company as an EMT. Back then, the company he worked for was tasked with taking bodies to the state crime lab, he said.

“Going onto the scenes and seeing the families and how things were handled, I felt like I could do a better job,” he said.

Proctor, a 61-year-old retired Georgia Power worker, said his background as an EMT and volunteer firefighter, his knowledge of the law as it relates to the coroner’s office, and his ability to investigate deaths have helped him do the job.

“I enjoy public service and want to continue working with people at probably the worst times in their lives and try to make the situation a little easier for them,” he said.

Proctor said he operates his office at half the budget of neighboring counties of similar size, population and call volume.

A Forsyth resident, he’s a Mary Persons High School graduate who also completed a degree in business administration from Tift College with a minor in psychology.

Inglett

Inglett, 51, said he’s worked as a part-time funeral assistant for more than a decade.

“I’m used to working with death,” he said. “I just feel it in my heart that this is something I want to do.”

Having been a volunteer firefighter for the Culloden and Monroe County fire departments, he has working relationships with the sheriff’s office, police and EMS, Inglett said.

If elected, he said he wants to establish an office, staffed by him or a deputy coroner, where residents can visit if they need to talk with the coroner. As of now, there isn’t an office, he said.

“I just don’t feel like the coroner’s office should wipe their hands of a call once they leave the scene,” Inglett said.

He said a chaplain already serves as a deputy coroner, but he wants to add a second chaplain to the staff.

If elected, Inglett said he also wants to provide the community with education about preventable deaths by talking with high school students about the dangers of texting and driving as well as new mothers about deaths caused by co-sleeping.

Born in Augusta and raised in Thompson, Inglett lived in Monroe County for a couple of stints as a child while his father, a painting contractor, worked at Tift College and the Georgia Public Safety Training Center.

He moved to Monroe County in 2000.

The last day to register to vote in the May 24 election is April 26.

Early voting will be held May 2 through May 20 at the county administration building, 38 W. Main Street, Forsyth. Saturday voting will be held at the same location May 14.

This story was originally published April 22, 2016 at 8:51 PM with the headline "Incumbent seeks sixth term as Monroe County coroner; challenger calls for change."