Lara Edwards new senior director
Lara Edwards was announced as the new senior center director at the Christmas After Dark fundraiser on Friday night. Outgoing director Sandi McDaniel applauds. Photo by Lynda Kinsey
By WILLIAM SNOWDEN Editor
Lara Edwards has been hired as the new director of the Wakulla Senior Center, and started in the new post on July 17.
Former director Sandi McDaniel has been working with Edwards on the transition and will retire in a few months.
In an interview in her office on Friday, July 28, before the Christmas After Dark fundraiser held later in the evening, Edwards said the biggest challenge facing her in the new role is “figuring out all the moving parts.”
The center receives funding from numerous agencies, and then has many different programs it offers – including Transportation, before/after-school childcare, hot meals and activities at the center, Meals on Wheels, the senior apartments next door to the center, In-Home Health Care, and there’s also the thrift store in Sopchoppy.
The hire has drawn concern from some quarters as being political because Edwards is married to County Administrator David Edwards. The county government provides funding for the Transportation Disadvantaged bus service operated by the senior center.
But Edwards said there is no conflict. “David doesn’t vote on the budget,” she said, noting that’s the role of commissioners. And she stressed that she would have no problem going to the county next year asking for an increase in funding.
(One board member of the senior center, who asked not to be identified, denied the hire was politically motivated and noted Edwards was one of the top three candidates chosen by the hiring committee but was not the first person offered the job. The top candidate rejected the job offer over salary. The board member expressed great confidence that Edwards would do a terrific job.)
Edwards is currently mayor of Sopchoppy and she anticipates stepping down from that role, but still remaining on the Sopchoppy City Commission until the end of her term. She has served on the city commission since 2011 and as mayor since 2016.
Edwards had been working for the FSU Foundation’s real estate office until she was offered the senior center job.
“At 52, I was feeling a need for a shift and do something different,” Edwards said. “My FSU experience and all of my mayoral experience made me feel confident applying for it.”
Edwards comes in as the senior center is reaching a new stability after the upheaval of the firing a few years ago of longtime senior director R.H. Carter, along with some of his staff.
The then-board of directors realized how much they didn’t know about the center’s finances: there was no budget, the center had operated without one for years; no real audit had been done of the center’s finances; and there were financial anomalies like an outstanding loan on the senior apartments.
John Shuff, the chair of the senior board, noted that over the past three years the loan on the apartments has been paid off; there is a functioning budget; financial audits have been performed; and there is an accounting firm on board.
Edwards says that the progress made by the center made her comfortable applying for the position.
Edwards notes the center opens at 7 a.m. weekdays with coffee being put on, and some seniors start showing up as early as 7:15. On Tuesdays and Fridays, when Pickin’ ‘n’ Grinnin’ performs at lunchtime, there are as many as 100 people at the center.
“I look around and just think of all the stories,” she says.
“I want to change the perception of the senior center as stark white walls and 90-year-olds playing pinochle,” she says. “Because that’s not it at all – you walk in there and there’s music and laughter.”
Edwards says she loves being involved in the community – it’s what makes her happy, she says.
“As daunting as some of the challenges are,” she says, “Hope I’m sitting here in 10 years.”
