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North Georgia park ranger Will Wagner can’t get enough of the outdoors.
Will Wagner was just 16 years old when, during a foray into what would become a lifelong career with the Georgia Department of Parks and Recreation, he performed his first swimming pool rescues as a lifeguard in Columbus.
“I’d just jump in and scoop [the babies] out before they even took a gulp of water in,” says Wagner, 37. “Just to have your eye on the entire body of water at one time, scanning, and notice something wrong—you can almost smell it before you even see it. I think it comes from being in tune with your surroundings. That is something that I’ve stressed heavily upon my children: Know what’s going on around you at all times. Instead of staring at screens and stressing about this fast-moving pace that we’re struggling in today, folks need to get outside and take a deep breath, pay attention to what’s directly in front of them. Nature is part of us, and when there’s a ripple in that, you can feel it.”
This heightened sense of awareness serves Wagner well in his role as manager of Smithgall Woods State Park near Helen, the adjacent Hardman Farm State Historic Site, and the North Georgia Mountain Search and Rescue Squad, where his team focuses on cliffs, caves and swift-water rescues. On any given day, he might be monitoring the 6,000 acres at Smithgall, the second-largest state park in the system and a protected site for eastern hemlocks and American chestnuts; checking in cottage guests and leading farm tours; or helping build the new 4,400-foot-long, ADA-compliant Chattahoochee River Trail that will connect Hardman to downtown Helen. “That’s what I love about being a park ranger,” he says. “No two days are the same. And in my 21-year career, I can’t tell you two days that even recognized each other.”
Wagner was raised in the rural backwoods of the Florida Panhandle by two nature-loving parents who often took him camping as they moved from city to city in Georgia. “I grew up with a coonskin cap on my head,” he jokes. “The minute that I could walk, I ran into the woods.”
For three summers during high school, he lifeguarded at inner-city pools in downtown Columbus, where he enjoyed interacting with underprivileged youth who couldn’t afford sports camps but needed a way to stay out of trouble. After graduating from Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton in 2003—he paid for his tuition by working at a pet store and servicing aquariums at local doctors’ offices and libraries—he took a break to explore the canyons, caverns and caves out west. While there, he became intrigued with backcountry medicine, became a Wilderness First Responder, and learned how to do everything from delivering a baby in a remote area to setting a broken leg with a tree limb at the bottom of a cliff.
He later returned to Georgia and earned a degree in outdoor recreation and education, minoring in business with the intent of running an operation like Smithgall one day, and spent several summers as a raft guide on the Nantahala and Ocoee rivers, where he honed his whitewater rescue skills. After that, he worked at Reynolds Nature Preserve south of Atlanta, then in 2009 took a park management job at James Floyd State Park near Summerville and the Chattahoochee National Forest. He also became a statewide squad leader for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources search and rescue team. “If I’m off one day and get a phone call that something’s happening on Pigeon Mountain over in Lafayette, I’ll respond if I can,” he says. “And if Hurricane Irma comes knocking on the door of Savannah, we’ll take our boats down there with the swift-water response and pull people out of homes.”
