a lot going on but basically, I was running from the calling. After years of running, I finally answered God’s calling in 1996 and became licensed in 1997.” While Haigler doesn’t preach every Sunday, she does continue to spread the word of God. She spoke at Greater Piney Grove Baptist Church’s Women’s Day on April 21, where the theme was “Destiny: We All Have Different Paths, But Only One Way.” While there are other ministers, preachers and pastors working with Haigler under the Gold Dome, in 2008, she was the first ordained female clergy to be elected to the General Assembly, black or white. Being a change agent runs in her family. In 1993, her mother, Peggy Butler, became the first African American elected to the West Columbia City Council in Lexington County, South Carolina.
She later became the first female Mayor Pro Tem of the city. “She taught me to never give up. You always fight. If you don’t win, you fight to see another day.
You are here for the people,” said Haigler. “I’ve always been around politics. I’m happy and honored I had such a strong woman to look up to growing up.” Haigler attends First Saint Paul A.M.E. in Lithonia, where the Rev. Marvin L. Crawford serves as pastor. She says her favorite verse is Ephesians 3:20: “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.” (KJV). “If it was up to pastor, I would be in the pulpit a lot more, but I preach pretty often there,” said Haigler, who is a mother of four children and a grandmother of one. “I tell people all the time: The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. The reason I do this: I don’t want to die with works undone.”
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