For the first time in nearly three decades, Monroe County has a new coroner, but he’s a familiar face to most Monroe Countians.
Mark Goolsby, a Juliette native who served as Monroe County’s longtime building inspector, outpolled incumbent coroner Joey Proctor by a nearly 63 percent to 37 percent margin in a June 18, 2024 Primary Election runoff.
Goolsby said he has been interested in being the county’s coroner since he began his part-time career in the funeral service business. While working a day job for Georgia Power in the late 1980s, Goolsby began working as an attendant for Andy Dillon at Dillon Funeral Homes on the side. He eventually went to mortuary school, graduating from Gupton-Jones College of Funeral Service in 1996 with a degree in Mortuary Science. From there, he worked for Spanky Beck at Monroe County Memorial Chapel before operating a pair of funeral homes in Macon and Griffin, respectively.
But Goolsby’s dream of being coroner was put on halt for nearly two more decades beginning in 2005 when he was hired as the county’s building inspector. It wasn’t until his September 2023 retirement that he was once again eligible to be elected to a county office. Believing it was “now or never,” Goolsby announced in early 2024 his intention to run against Proctor and another challenger, Randy Inglett, in the May 2024 primary election. And after a hard-fought campaign that included a runoff, Goolsby was officially elected as coroner in June 2024. However, that started a six-month lame duck period, and it wasn’t until Jan. 1, 2025 that Goolsby officially became Monroe County’s coroner.
Goolsby said his first and foremost goal as coroner is to “serve the community with dignity and respect.” But he said he also has some goals toward modernizing a Monroe County Coroner’s Office that he said is lagging behind some surrounding counties. Goolsby said the coroner has a physical office in the Monroe County Conference Center building, but he said it has not been sufficiently used. He said he wants to get WiFi and telephones operating at the office. But perhaps the biggest shortcoming is a lack of cooler space to store bodies until for example, a next of kin can be located, a body can be identified, or a body needs to be transported to the crime lab. He said presently the county borrows a single cooler space at Monroe County Memorial Chapel, but beyond that, the coroner must look out of town for additional cooler space options.
“Right now we use one at Spanky’s, and we can use coolers in Macon,” Goolsby said. “But when you’ve got a situation and you need a cooler, you don’t need to be riding up and down the road trying to figure out where you’re going to put somebody. You need to have a cooler. And with the interstate, you could have a massive casualty. It’ll be hard enough working the scene, let alone trying to say, ‘Take two to Macon, take one to Spanky’s, take three to wherever.’ It’s best if we had a central location here.”
Goolsby said another priority is to hire a deputy coroner to fill a vacancy recently created when longtime deputy coroner Jeff McDuffie moved. Currently, Goolsby has two deputy coroners, James Freeman Jr. and Jessica Williams.
Goolsby said his first six weeks on the job were thankfully a bit quieter than he expected, especially considering the potentially dangerous winter weather that snarled traffic on I-75 last month. He said his toughest early challenge has been to help grieving family members understand that death certificates can sometimes take a long time to process, especially if a body has been sent to an increasingly busy state crime lab. But Goolsby said he will keep family members as plugged into the process as he can, saying he doesn’t want to “keep families in the dark.”
Goolsby said he and Wanda, his wife of more than 45 years, raised their four daughters, Amanda, Ashly, Andrea, and Amber, to be “service-oriented, community-oriented” citizens. Goolsby remains the co-pastor at New Beginnings Pentecostal Church and is active with the Juliette River Club. Goolsby’s late father Brack even served as Monroe County’s road superintendent for more than three decades, but Goolsby became the first member of his family to be elected to political office when he served a decade-long stint on the Monroe County Board of Education.
Goolsby recalled with a laugh: “Daddy said, ‘If anybody ever asks you to run for commissioner, run for the county line.’ I said, ‘I might try it, Daddy.’ And he just looked at me. Well, I was elected to the school board.”
Goolsby said he’s thankful for Monroe County’s citizens once again showing their faith in his leadership by electing him as coroner.
“I appreciate again their support and trust in me to do the job,” Goolsby said. “And I will do the best to my ability to do the most respectful and dignified job that can be done.”
