Not too many Little League Baseball games took place in Hampton without R.W. Coley being in the stands or coaching a team.
“He probably coached just about everyone in Hampton,” City Manager Andy Pippin said.
Little League was so much a part of he and his family’s lives that his late wife, Mary Lou, worked the concession stands while he coached. Coley and a couple of other town residents put up money to have a second baseball field built to accomodate the town’s growing Little League program. A few years ago, a town park was renamed the R.W. and Mary Lou Coley Park.
“No matter what he was doing, he usually put other people ahead of himself,” said his son, Tim, director of Henry County Parks and Recreation Department. “He was an awesome dad.”
That selflessness also extended to his time as mayor, a job he held for the past seven years and one that he took beyond just presiding over monthly meetings.
If a resident had trouble paying a utility bill, he’d quietly pay it. When Meals on Wheels needed volunteers, he stepped up. When storms hit, he’d ride around the town of 7,000 to make sure residents were all right. He brought donuts to every council meeting. Every Halloween, the retired air traffic controller and Air Force veteran would sit on the steps of the city hall and pass out candy to trick-or-treaters.
“Two things I could count on not having to do was sign a city check and locking the doors (of city hall) at night,” Pippin said of his mentor. “He did those two things every night.”
But earlier this month the center seat at the Hampton city council meeting was vacant. The mayor was briefly hospitalized with pneumonia but had been recovering, city officials said.
Hampton Mayor Raiford Walker “R.W.” Coley died early Wednesday morning at his home. He was 77.
“There wasn’t an elected official or appointed official who wasn’t crying …as they learned the news,” Pippin said.
“Mayor Coley was far more than a political leader. He was a mentor; a true public servant, ” said Henry County Commission Chairman B.J. Mathis. “Most of all, he was someone you wanted to be like. He always had a kind word to speak, and devoted his entire life to helping others to be the very best that they could be.”
He never considered himself a politician but he decided to run for mayor after he opposed the city’s annexation plans which he felt had gotten out of hand, said former Hampton city councilman Arley Lowe, a longtime friend who worked with Coley as an air traffic controller. His fairness and accessibility had employees clamoring to work for him, Lowe said. It also enabled him to run a second time unopposed as mayor.
“He was just a great guy,” Lowe said. ” I’ve always considered him my best friend here in town.”
Coley loved his job as mayor, presiding over parades and the annual Fourth of July picnic. But he had his weakness: sweets.
“One of my job descriptions was to monitor his sugar intake,” Pippin said of his mentor. “Whenever I’d hear about a pothole or some issue with an abandoned property, I’d say ‘Mayor come on let’s go see about it’ and we’d always stop at the Speedway Donut shop.”
In addition to his son Tim who lives in McDonough, Coley also is survived by another son, Jeff, also of McDonough, and four grandchildren.
Funeral services will be 11 a.m. Friday at Haisten Funerals and Cremations, 1745 Zack Hinton Parkway South, McDonough. He will be buried at Berea Cemetary in Hampton.
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